Epidemiological Patterns of Microbial Foodborne Disease Outbreaks in Korea in the First and Second Halves of the 10-year Period from 2001 to 2010

The average prevalence rate (PR) for foodborne disease outbreaks (FBDOs) in the first half (F-H) and latter half (L-H) of the decade from 2001 to 2010 in Korea was 14.0 and 16.9 per 100,000 population, respectively. The number of patients per outbreak of foodborne diseases (FBDs) in the F-H of that decade was 57.6 and in the L-H was 25.4 (p < 0.05). A comparison of the 2 periods covered in this study indicates that FBDOs in the L-H most frequently involved restaurants or delis (51.5% of total cases), and in the F-H, this involvement was noted in 34.0% of total cases (p < 0.01). The epidemic patterns of microbial FBDOs show that the overall incidence of outbreaks resulting from 5 of 8 key pathogens including Bacillus cereus (+1.6%), Campylobacter jejuni (+1.5%), Clostridium spp. (+0.7%), pathogenic Escherichia coli (+8.3%), and Norovirus (+14.4%) tended to be higher in the L-H than in the F-H of the decade from 2001 to 2010. Conversely, those caused by the other 3 key agents, including Salmonella spp. ( 9.2%), Staphylococcus aureus ( 2.8%), and Vibrio parahaemolyticus ( 6.4%) were significantly lower in the L-H than in the F-H of the decade. Moreover, in the decade between 2001 and 2010, the number of patients (n) and the PR for microbial FBD increased from the F-H (n = 13,346, PR: 5.6) to the L-H (n = 33,732, PR: 13.8) (p < 0.01).