Tainted food surprisingly deadly in adults - WHO

11.nov.09
Reuters
Laura McInnis

GENEVA -- Millions of adults die every year from bugs and toxins in what
they eat, according to new World Health Organisation data that shows
food-borne diseases are far more deadly than the U.N. agency previously
estimated.
The research faults unsafe food for 1.2 million deaths per year in
people over the age of five in Southeast Asia and Africa -- three times
more adult deaths than the Geneva-based WHO had thought occurred in the
whole world.
"It is a picture that we have never had before," WHO Food Safety
Director Jorgen Schlundt said in an interview. "We now have
documentation of a significant burden outside the less than five group,
that is major new information."
Ailments linked to contaminated food and water have long been seen as a
major threat to young children, who can dehydrate quickly. But the
Danish veterinarian and microbiologist said the risks to older
populations had been grossly underestimated.
Older children and the elderly are especially vulnerable to severe
illness from major food- and water-borne diseases such as salmonella,
listeria, E. coli, Hepatitis A and cholera.
Food safety experts are now seeking to measure the burden of such
afflictions in people over the age of five in the Arab world, Latin
America and elsewhere in Asia including China.
And already, Schlundt said, health officials are recognising the need to
confront the most dangerous types of contamination in their industrial
regulations and trade standards.
Many of the contaminants that have made headlines in recent years in the
United States, such as salmonella and E. coli, also exist in poorer
countries but are not monitored as carefully there, according to
Schlundt.
Health authorities in developed countries are now much more able to
document food safety risks because of tests that can quickly connect
disparate cases of illness to tainted foods such as lettuce, peppers,
spinach and beef. 
But the WHO expert said that some ailments have also become more
prevalent in the food system alongside the globalisation of the food
supply and the rise of modern food production methods, which can
propagate ailments quickly and on a large scale.