Surveillance of food-borne illness in Canada
Canada uses different surveillance systems to monitor cases of food-borne illness. Learn about these systems.
How does Canada monitor food-borne illness?
Surveillance systems across Canada:
- detect outbreaks
- monitor trends
- identify risk factors
These systems rely on information provided by:
- local public health authorities and laboratories
- provincial and territorial public health ministries and authorities
Canada uses data from different surveillance systems to estimate food-borne illness. These include the:
- Canadian Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (CNDSS)
- collects annual numbers of laboratory-confirmed illnesses reported to provincial and territorial public health authorities for a set of diseases
- National Enteric Surveillance Program (NESP)
- collects weekly numbers on select bacteria, parasites and viruses from provincial laboratories at the subtype and species level
- Enhanced National Listeriosis Surveillance
- collects detailed information on invasive listeriosis cases in participating provinces and territories
- FoodNet Canada
- collects information on cases of infectious gastrointestinal illness and sources of exposure in specific communities across the country
- Provincial and Territorial Reportable Disease Surveillance System
- collects the number of laboratory-confirmed illnesses reported by local public health units and authorities for a set of diseases
- National Studies on Acute Gastrointestinal Illness (NSAGI)
- collects information from population surveys on vomiting and diarrhea
Other important surveillance systems for food-borne illness in Canada include: