Quantitative risk assessment of food borne pathogens - a modeling approach

There is always a certain probability that the consumption of food leads to a reduced health status due to microbial contamination, however small this risk may be. One of the most frequently occurring effects of food infection or food poisoning is the occurrence of gastroenteritis. Usually this means an acute and temporary reduction in health status at the individual level, although also chronic effects and even death may occur. In this contribution we would like to describe: − how frequently gastroenteritis occurs and which micro-organisms are involved; − in what way we may get insight into means to control or, preferably, reduce health damage due to food-borne pathogens. Quantitative microbiological risk assessment will be introduced. More specifically we will present work on modeling the fate of pathogens along the production chain, dose response and disease burden.