Epidemiologic study of waterborne and foodborne diseases in Brazil: mapping trends and challenges through a 22-year (2000-2021) historical series.

Abstract

This study analyzed a 22-year historical series of outbreaks of waterborne and foodborne diseases, aiming to provide a mapping of the main associated pathogens, regions with the highest incidence, foods involved, and places of infection. The results, in the scenario of Brazilian macro-regions, showed heterogeneity in the macro-regional microbiological profile, with the Southeast region being the one with the highest number of diseases caused by viruses, while in the others there was bacterial predominance. Of the 78 organisms reported, 10 caused more than 95% of illnesses. Among them, Escherichia coli was the bacteria that grew the most in the number of notifications from 2011 to 2021. Water was one of the main vehicles of transmission, in addition to foods that showed classic behavior in terms of microbiological transmission. Weaknesses were observed in the records that limit the carrying out of more specific analyses due to the large number of inconsistent, ignored, or inconclusive cases, which, in some parameters, exceeded 50% of notifications. This research highlights the need to strengthen the health system, so that there is a more specific and effective diagnosis of factors related to the spread of infectious diseases.