Campylobacter holds onto lead in 2000

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An estimated 76 million Americans contract foodborne illnesses each year, and Campylobacter is the most likely culprit.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's April 6 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, figures from the FoodNet surveillance system showed that during 2000, 12,631 laboratory-confirmed cases of nine diseases under surveillance were identified: 4,640 of campylobacteriosis, 4,237 of salmonellosis, 2,324 of shigellosis, 631 of Escherichia coli O157 infections, 484 of cryptosporidiosis, 131 of yersiniosis, 101 of listeriosis, 61 of Vibrio infections, and 22 of cyclosporiasis.

This pattern has remained the same since 1996, when the CDC first implemented the FoodNet surveillance system. The system collects information from clinical laboratories in nine sites across the nation, and beginning in 2001, will monitor 33.1 million people, or about 12 percent of the United States population.