Introduction
Foods in school, office, and hospital canteen, as well as in fast food chains and restaurants, and on other places that serve food to the public must be prepared with proper sanitation. The establishments must also adhere to the guidelines made by the authorities regarding food safety to avoid the spread of foodborne illnesses. This is because foodborne infection poses a serious threat and risks to the population in general. In fact, there are estimated 350,000 cases of foodborne-related illnesses in the United States, and nearly 5000 of them faced an unfortunate death (Nyachuba, 2010). Note that the report is only within the Untied States, which is a country with a prosperous economy and high quality health care service. It only implies that the case in other countries may be worse and difficult to observe and cure. Due to this kind of situation, it is needed to increase the awareness of the people about the nature of foodborne illness. Giving them sufficient knowledge about the disease will help them prevent the disease from spreading through proper handling of foods.
Body
Foodborne illness outbreak affects people of all ages, regardless of whether one has a healthy lifestyle or not. However, the children, elderly, and immunity-deprived people are the ones that are most easily affected (Todd, 1997). Moreover, outbreak frequently happens in a place where people are congested, and there are only a few food sources in which they can afford. Unfortunately, if the source and the food is not clean, and the preparations do not comply with sanitary standards of the municipality, chances of foodborne illness outbreak is relatively high. One highly potential place where the outbreak reportedly happens is in school, and as such, students of all levels are most likely affected (Daniels et al., 2002). According to an article, the average number of foodborne infection outbreaks in schools that are reported in a yearly basis is 25, and only 36 percent of those cases have detected the main cause of the outbreak (Daniels et al., 2002). Due to low accuracy, it will be difficult to prevent outbreaks in the future and people are still in the risks of being infected.
The outbreaks of foodborne illness in schools can be traced from the storage of the foods that are being served in the canteens. In an article made by Daniels et al. (2002), foods that are transported to the school canteens such as poultry, beef and dairy products are not properly stored in the canteen, which would result to spoilage, rotting, or bacteria growth on the foods. Since the staffs are still not aware of their mistakes, they will most likely continue to use the stored foods and served them to the students when cooked. The next thing that will happen after a few hours will be predictable, and suddenly, all students and other people who ate the foods will be seen with signs and symptoms of foodborne illness. Common malpractices that might cause foodborne infections include storage of foods at the wrong temperature and the cleanliness of food handler (Daniels et al., 2002). This is quite alarming especially to the students and parents because trust issues might arise regarding the food safety of the students when their parents are not around.
In general, spread of foodborne diseases can be caused by several factors. According to Todd (1997), food handling, ease of transporting food, emergence of new foodborne agents and new ways of food handling are some of the risk factors of spreading the disease. When a food handler lacks the proper sanitation, the food will be infected as well, and this will create a chain reaction where all the other ingredients will be contaminated before being served to the people. Also, foods are being transported easily, and since there are no limiting laws. The chances of contaminating the food at places with unsanitary condition are more likely to be relatively high. Another factor is that the emergence of new foodborne agents will be difficult to control immediately because the experts will need more time to study the agent and make the cure, thus, the agent will affect the population first before being controlled. Lastly, new ways of handling foods do not assure the cleanliness of foods all throughout the process. As a result, the risk of contaminating the food will also be high, especially if the process do not prioritize sanitation.
Conclusion
In order to solve the crisis regarding foodborne disease outbreaks, a list of potentially infecting foodborne agents must be informed to the authorities and people (Cardoen et al., 2009). This will enable the authorities to make the right policies that will cover global scale so that no culture will be affected or will disappear due to the future policy. Also, this will create diversity among nations in a way of information dissemination. Also, strict surveillance related to the risk factors mentioned earlier must be implemented (Altekruse, Cohen, & Swerdlow, 1997). This will prevent bias of entry or exit foods and other products which are potentially harmful and can cause diseases. Regardless of origin and purpose of delivery, all products must pass the standards before proceeding to the next agenda. Upon entry, food handlers will be checked thoroughly if they have the proper attire and equipment, and if the place is completely sanitized. In this way, the quality of foods that will be served to the public is assured to be high and free from infection.
References
Altekruse, S., Cohen, M., & Swerdlow, D. (1997). Emerging foodborne diseases. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 3(3), 285-293.
Cardoen, S., Van Huffel, X., Berkvens, D., Quoilin, S., Ducoffre, G., Saegerman, C., . . . Dierrick, K. (2009). Evidence-based semiquantitative methodology for prioritization of foodborne zoonoses. Foodborne Pathogens and Diseases, 6(9), 1083-1096.
Daniels, N., MacKinnon, L., Rowe, S., Bean, N., Griffin, P., & Mead, P. (2002). Foodborne disease outbreaks in United States schools. The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, 21(7), 623-628.
Nyachuba, D. (2010). Foodborne illness: Is it on the rise? Nutrition Reviews, 68(5), 257-269.
Todd, E. (1997). Epidemiology of foodborne diseases: A worldwide review. World Health Statistics Quarterly, 50(1-2), 30-50.
