Signal Foodborne disease costs UK society 9.1 billion pounds a year

Summary

The report expresses the burden of foodborne disease on UK society in monetary terms. For 2018, the cost to UK society was estimated at about 9.1 billion pounds a year. Around a fifth of this was financial, covering lost earnings, medical costs, school absences and disruption to businesses when staff take sick leave. Of the total, 7.1 billion pounds reflected the human cost of pain, grief and suffering borne by patients and their carers through illness, long-term complications and deaths. By pathogen, norovirus carried the heaviest burden at about 1.7 billion pounds a year, followed by Campylobacter and Salmonella. In the same year, foodborne disease in the UK caused an estimated 2.4 million cases, about 16,000 hospital admissions and more than 180 deaths.