The importance of food borne diseases can not be under estimated.
Diseases resulting from the consumption of food are quite common.
Usually the food is contaminated with a pathogen or a toxin and the food acts as a vehicle for the pathogen or toxin. The number of cases of disease resulting from food consumption is estimated to be between 6 and 80 million cases per year. The illness is not severe enough to seek medical attention. Those individuals that do visit the doctor may not be willing to provide a stool sample for diagnosis. Doctors may not report the cases to recording agencies because a specific diagnosis or etiology was not determined.