The overall number of reported food poisoning cases remained more or less constant at around 94,000 between 1997 and 1998. Reported cases had shot up the year before. There were only around 83,000 cases in 1996. However, an unpublished government report suggests the true number of cases could be nearer nine million because many cases are not recorded. Some 200 people a year are estimated to die from food poisoning.
Experts say that all are preventable if safety measures are adopted.
It was set up in response to recent food safety scares over salmonella, E. Coli and BSE, and has been welcomed by health and food organisations alike. Official statistics Official figures for 1998 show there was a big drop in cases of salmonella, but a large increase in the number of infections caused by another bug, campylobacter. Food safety experts say this could be because of the cool summer of 1998 did not provide the right conditions for salmonella to spread. Laboratory reports on salmonella fell from 32,596 in 1997 to 23,216 in 1998. There was also a smaller fall in cases of E. Coli 0157, the bug linked to an outbreak at a butcher's in Scotland which killed 20 people - down from 969 cases in 1997 to 902 cases in 1998.