ABSTRACT
Seafood poisoning accounts for a large and growing proportion of all food poisoning incidents. In the United States, fish, shellfish, and other marine organisms are responsible for at least 1 in 6 food poisoning outbreaks with a known etiology, and for 15% of the deaths associated with these particular outbreaks. The proportion of foodborne illnesses attributable to seafood, based on reporting for 1988-1992, has markedly increased over the previous decade, when seafood consumption was associated with 10% of foodborne illnesses with an identified etiology (1-4). In other parts of the world, the impact of sea food poisoning is even greater. In the period 1971-1990, seafood was the single most important vehicle in food poisoning outbreaks in Korea (32%) and Japan (22%), where seafood was responsible for 43% and 62%, respectively, of outbreak-related fatalities (5,6). As with general food poisoning, seafood poisonings share the following epidemio logic characteristics: ingestion as the primary route of exposure, a wide variety of etiolo gies (bacterial, viral, parasitic, and toxin), significant underreporting, and an apparently increasing incidence in human populations.
