Diseases Transmitted by Foods Contaminated by Wastewater

Abstract

A historical and worldwide review of medical and engineering literature discloses that typhoid fever, infectious hepatitis, fascioliasis, and cholera are the diseases that have been most frequently transmitted by foods contaminated by sewage or irrigation water in agricultural or aquacultural practices. Wastewater-contaminated shellfish have resulted in 28 outbreaks of illness, watercress in 10, fish in three, and shrimp in one. Vegetables contaminated by night soil or raw or partially treated sewage were reponed as vehicles in 21 outbreaks.