Survival and cross-contamination of foodborne pathogens in the domestic kitchen : a review

Abstract

Infectious diseases have been recognized as serious health risks for many centuries. The mortality rate of these diseases was of great concern even as recently as the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. The increasing awareness of the importance of personal hygiene as well as the introduction of safe water supplies and sewage systems, milk pasteurisation, population wide vaccination schemes and the use of antibiotics resulted in successful control of acute infections in the course of the twentieth century (Barrett et 01., 1998; Lederberg, 1997). However, epidemiological data indicate that infectious diseases remain globally a serious threat for public health (WHO, 2001). Previously unknown infections (emerging infectious diseases) and the reappearance of known diseases after a significant decline in incidence (re-emerging infectious diseases) cause enormous public health problems both nationally and internationally….