Clearly linked to consumption of foods, beverages, and drinking water that contain pathogenic microbes, toxins, or other toxic agents, foodborne diseases have undergone a remarkable change of fortune in recent decades, from once rare and insignificant malaises to headline-grabbing and deadly outbreaks. Unquestionably, several factors have combined to make this happen. These include a prevailing demand for the convenience of ready-to-eat or heat-and-eat manufactured food products that allow ready entry and survival of some robust, temperature-insensitive microorganisms; a drastic reduction in the costs of air, sea, and road transportation that has taken some pathogenic microorganisms to where they were absent previously; an expanding world population that has stretched the boundary of human activity; and an ageing population whose weakened immune functions provide a fertile ground for opportunistic pathogens to invade and thrive.
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