To many food safety professionals, the significance of emerging, re-emerging and soon to be emerging microbial pathogens has become an obvious critical issue as we address the consumer’s focus on public health.  In several surveillance studies, these pathogens have been collectively grouped in the category of unspecified etiology.  This may be due to inability to identify these microbes for a variety of reasons such as the physiological state of the pathogen or a lack of a robust isolation method from foods. However, in some cases, we may never have anticipated a particular microbe to be associated with food or the creation of a mosaic hybrid pathogen such as Escherichia coli O104:H4.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN has indicated that 60 percent of all emerging infectious diseases have zoonotic sources. Therefore, the global food supply may act as not only a source of disease causing organisms but also has an in vivo medium to generate novel pathogens. Consequently, the broader picture of risk associated with the consumption of contaminated foods can be delineated and managed only if the biological hazards (specifically food borne pathogens) linked to food are well known and studied. If one considers the scenario that the biological hazard associated with food was never anticipated or even unknown, the impact of this lack of data can have significant consequences in many facets of food safety as it pertains to regulations, policy, and the food industry.  There is an eminent need to acquire data related to emerging and re-emerging pathogens to translate the biological hazards from an unknown origin to a known entity. This symposium will address the critical issues about emerging, re-emerging and soon to be emerging agents in a similar way as other well known foodborne pathogens. Speakers have been asked to address the long-term research need to improve our ability to respond quickly to new microbial threats and help us become more proactive at anticipating and preventing emergence.

Presentations