Investigation of food and water microbiological conditions and foodborne disease outbreaks in the Federal District, Brazil

This is a retrospective study describing data on the microbiological conditions of food and water obtained from analysis reports issued by the Central Laboratory of the Federal District (LACEN-DF), and information on foodborne disease outbreaks investigated by the Office of Water and Food Borne Diseases of the Federal District (NATHA), Brazil, between 2000 and 2010. A total of 4576 analysis reports were evaluated, from which 92.9% of monitoring samples and 7.1% of samples suspected to be involved in outbreaks. Of the total number of samples, 630 did not comply with Brazilian legislation (rejected). Ready-to-eat food, milk/dairy products, water, spices/seasonings, and ice cream/sorbets had the highest rejection rates among the monitoring samples (18.9-11%), with the first two groups having the highest rates among the outbreak samples (23.5 and 21.7%). Minas cheese showed to be the food with the highest rejection rate among the samples analyzed by the LACEN-DF. About 9% of the food samples were rejected due to thermotolerant coliforms and/or coagulase-positive staphylococci, and 10.5% of the water samples were rejected due to Pseudomona aeruginosa. Ready-to-eat food were the main foods involved in the foodborne disease outbreaks investigated by NATHA (51.3% of the 117 outbreaks with the food identified) and Bacillus cereus the most identified etiologic agent (41.2% of the 80 outbreaks with the agent identified). This study indicated that microbiological surveillance programs should focus on ready-to-eat food to prevent the occurrence of foodborne disease outbreaks in the region.