The occurrence of selected zoonoses associated with consumption of meat and meat products

Zoonoses are diseases that can be transmitted from animals to man, either directly or via contaminated food. They are an extremely large group of human diseases with an extremely serious medical and economic impact, for which reason great attention is devoted to monitoring the incidence of zoonoses and their causative agents. The individual EU member states have national data collection systems, and the data collected are passed to the European Commission through the organisation EFSA, which conducts its annual assessment. The diseases with the largest number of proven cases in the Czech Republic have long included salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis. Listeriosis and diseases caused by verocytotoxigenic strains of E. coli are other serious diseases of bacterial origin. Trichinellosis is the most serious parasitic zoonosis with confirmed positive occurrence in the EU. This study aims to assess the results of monitoring of the selected significant alimentary diseases given above, including their causative agents, and to compare the number of reported cases of these diseases in the Czech Republic and the European Union in the period 2004–2012, including an evaluation of trends.