Culture-independent diagnostic tests are affecting
outbreak monitoring.
Changes in the tests that diagnose foodborne
illness are helping identify infections faster but could soon pose challenges
to finding outbreaks and monitoring progress toward preventing foodborne
disease, according to a report published today in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Week Report.
Culture-independent
diagnostic tests (CIDTs) help doctors diagnose infections quickly because they
provide results in hours instead of the days needed for traditional culture
methods, which require growing bacteria to determine the cause of illness. However,
without a bacterial culture, public health officials cannot get the detailed
information about the bacteria needed to help find outbreaks, check for
antibiotic resistance, and track foodborne disease trends.
In
2015, the percentage of foodborne infections diagnosed only by CIDT was about
double with the percentage in 2012-2014.
“Foodborne
infections continue to be an important public health problem in the United
States,” said Robert Tauxe, M.D., M.P.H, director of CDC’s Division of
Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases. “We are working with partners
to make sure we still get important information about harmful bacteria despite
the increasing use of diagnostic tests that don’t require a culture.”
The
increased use of CIDT could affect public health officials’ ability to monitor
trends and detect outbreaks. In the short term, clinical laboratories should
work with their public health laboratories to make sure a culture is done
whenever a CIDT indicates that someone with diarrheal illness has a bacterial
infection. For a long-term solution, CDC is working with partners to develop
advanced testing methods that, without culture, will give health care providers
information to diagnose illness and also give the detailed information that
public health officials need to detect and investigate outbreaks.
Limited progress in
reducing foodborne illness: The report included the most recent data from CDC’s
Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, or FoodNet. It summarizes
preliminary 2015 data on nine pathogens spread commonly through food. Overall,
progress in reducing rates of foodborne illnesses has been limited since 2012,
according to the report. The most frequent causes of infection in 2015
were Salmonella and Campylobacter, which
is consistent with previous years.
CDC want to
respond quickly to foodborne illness, but the true goal is to move forward with
preventive measures that will be implemented from farm to table. In addition to
collaboration with other government agencies at the local, state and federal
level, the rules implementing under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act will
help the food industry minimize the risk of contamination to our food supply.
Source: http://www.foodpoisonjournal.com/food-poisoning-information/cdc-we-need-bacterial-cultures-to-catch-foodborne-outbreaks/#.VxYp5vnhCt8
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario