The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published a new report that confirms cases of E.coli food poisoning are declining in America.
The data, which has been gathered by the FoodNet program of the agency, was studied between two periods covering 2006 to 2008 and 2011 to 2013. It revealed that sickness associated with the E.coli strain, which caused a massive outbreak in 1993, has significantly dropped by 32 percent. The report also indicated that fewer Americans are no longer falling ill to the dangers of the bacteria, following regular inspections of the beef and cattle industry, as health officials said.
Cases of food poisoning remain prevalent in 10 states, however, but the report indicated that total deaths in relation to food poisoning have relatively stabilized in the past five years.
The latest CDC report also showed that Salmonella remains the top cause of food poisoning among Americans, with 38 percent falling ill in the course of the study. But the agency continues to regard Listeria, which has been recently linked to outbreaks in ice cream factories, as a rare but dangerous cause of food poisoning, according to Yahoo.
Vibrio cases, however, are on the rise, said the CDC and as reported on Maine News Online. The illness is most commonly associated with seafood. The CDC report showed that at least 19,000 cases relating to "vibrio vulnificus" were tracked last year, which lead to 7 deaths and 4,400 infections.
Factors attributed to its rise may be the increase in demand for raw oysters among food establishments and climate change, according to a report from Huffington Post. But Dr. Patricia Griffin of the CDC says more work is required to know the extent of the dangers of this infection.
"We estimate that each year, one in six people in the United States gets sick from eating contaminated food," Griffin said in Maine News Online report.
