A Retrospective Study on the Comparison of Outbreaks of Food Poisoning for Food Hygiene in Korea and Japan

Retrospective study on the comparison of outbreaks of food poisoning for food hygiene in Korea and Japan. The average value of morbidity rate by year in Korea during the period of 1971 to 1992 was 2.9 per 100,000 population, and that of Japan was 29.1. The mean value of mortality rates in case of food poisoning by year in Korea was 2.33%, and that of Japan was 0.07%. When compared the rates of morbidity and mortality between Korea and Japan during the same period, the morbidity rates of Japan were much higher than those of Korea (p<0.01). However, mortality rate of patients in Korea were much higher then those of Japan(p<0.01). Resulting from comparative observation of food poisoning by preparing facilities between Korea and Japan. The highest list the places where the outbreaks occurred was home-made foods accounted for 48.8% of the total cases in Korea and that of Japan was restaurants accounted for 33.0%. Causative foods in Korea, the most common incrimination vehicles were seafood, meat and animal products and grain and vegetables, including mushroom. However, in the case of the common incrimination vehicles Japan were unknown and other foods, seafood, vegetables and meat and animal products etc.. Food poisoning of pathogenic substance in Korea were 60.9% of bacterial food poisoning of the total cases showing that Vibrio species, Salmonella spp., Staphylococcus spp., pathogenic E. coli, Clostridium spp. and other spp. were 33.3%, 26.2%, 16.3%, 5.3%, 0.4% and 18.5%, respectively. On the other hand, in Japan, major causes were Vibrio spp. (45.7%), Staphylococcus spp. (23.7%), Salmonella spp. (16.8%), pathogenic E. coli (3.8%), Clostridium spp. (0.2%) and other spp. (9.6%).