Food-borne diseases
Animal health is a determining factor in food safety as certain diseases, called zoonoses, such as brucellosis, salmonellosis and listeriosis, can be transferred to humans. Although transmission may occur by different routes, food-borne infections are one of the principal causes of disease.
European legislation establishes specific measures for monitoring food-borne zoonoses and zoonotic agents, together with the proper epidemiological investigation of food-borne outbreaks.
Food-borne zoonoses and zoonotic agents
Zoonosis or anthropozoonosis is defined as: any disease or infection which is transmitted from animals to humans, and vice-versa, either directly or indirectly.
Spain, as a member of the European Union takes part in a common system of protective measures against certain zoonoses and zoonotic agents transmitted from animals to humans through food.
Monitoring and control
The policy against zoonotic infection needs to be based on risk analysis including three elements: risk assessment, risk management and risk communication.
Report of sources and trends
This is prepared annually in compliance with article 3 of Royal Decree 1940/2004 and article 9 of Directive 2003/99/EC, on the monitoring of zoonoses and zoonotic agents.
For the report, the data obtained in Spain is collected and forwarded using the Web data communication system of the EFSA, as occurs in other Member States of the EU and Norway, where the principal objective is currently the increasing harmonisation of the collection of data on zoonoses and zoonotic agents considered in the Directive.
Control programmes
The zoonoses under surveillance in animals at present do not pose a major problem as a food-borne cause of disease for humans, thanks in part to the inspection of the meat at the slaughterhouse and in part to the milk sanitisation systems. Nevertheless, cases continue to appear in humans and therefore the effort to control them in animals is justified.