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A report of the study of infectious intestinal disease in England

Project Code: codeless1

01/01/2001

BACKGROUND

In 1989, in response to national epidemics of foodborne infection with Salmonella
enteritidis phage type 4 and Listeria monocytogenes, the Secretary of State for
Health and Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food set up the Committee on the
Microbiological Safety of Food, under the chairmanship of Professor Mark
Richmond. This Committee recommended

‘a study of the incidence of infectious intestinal disease based on GP consultations in
which microbiological confirmation of the clinical diagnosis is carried out’

and that:

‘the true incidence of infectious intestinal disease in the community needs to be
ascertained. Thus we also recommend that a study including microbiological
screening should be set up to provide information of the incidence of gastrointestinal
illness in the community that can be linked to a microbiological cause. This should
take place, if possible, in the same areas as the GP-based study’

In addition to these recommendations, the successors to the Richmond Committee
decided that the value of the study would be enhanced by the collection of
information on people without infectious intestinal disease, so that differences
between the ill and the well could be identified. It was also decided that the clinical
course of the disease, its long-term sequelae and socio-economic costs should be
addressed.

Final Report

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