Discuss one cause of foodborne illness for example illnesses

Discuss one cause of foodborne illness (for example, illnesses due to E. coli O157:H7) State why it is a public health problem? The discuss why this problem occurs, Also discuss current control measures recommended and used to prevent and control the foodborne illness that is the focus of your discussion. Finally, you should propose a new control strategy or measure(s) that, if implemented, you believe would reduce or eliminate the problem that you have characterized earlier Your proposal for improved prevention and control practice should utilize terms and concepts,You should explain how your proposal relates to the problem that you identified earlier in the paper, why you believe that it will work, and how your proposed measure(s) fill gaps in the current public health response.

Solution

Illness due to E.coli O157:H7 takes place due to consumption of food such as raw vegetables,raw milk, uncooked raw meat that are contaminated with E.coli strain and coming in contact with feaces of animals that are also reservoirs of the bacteria.This strain produces a toxin known as Shiga toxin that is responsible for occurence of diarrhoea,hemorrhagic diarrhoea,renal failure etc, that is often life threatening.It is a public problem because it is raising the number of deaths in children and elders globally and it has become difficult to prevent the outbreak of the disease.This problem occurs because food safety standards are not maintained as per WHO guidelines , proper sanitation and hygiene standards are not maintained by people, raw meat, milk ,vegetables are not cooked properly before consuming them.Moreover it is not possible to kill all animals that act as reservoirs of the bacteria and spread the infection through their feacel matter.The control measures recommended are:Employment of the control measures at all levels of the food chain i.e from agriculture to farm to processing to manufacturing and preparation of foods both commercially and in household as well and maintanence of proper hygiene and sanitation methods, keeping livestocksaway from food and water supply areas.

Since it has been known that antibiotics and drugs are not much effective in curing of the infection, we can try new strategies that will decrease the pathogenecity of the bacteris.A new control strategy could be anti-induction methods to prevent the production of toxin.In this case, we can take the help of recombinant DNA technology to suppress the activity of the toxin prodicung gene,Also, we can use anti-Shiga toxin antibodies against the bacteria that will help to render resistance to our body against future infections.These strategies will help to prevent the root cause of the infection and also fight with infection even after it has occurred.