New reporting procedures are being put in place to ensure accurate figures on major infectious diseases occurring throughout the State, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has said. This follows the Department of Health's revision upwards of its figures on the incidence of E.coli 0157 bacteria this year by a factor of 20.
A review involving a detailed check with all health boards has confirmed the kind of sharp increases in cases of the potentially fatal bacteria which food scientists had predicted. There were eight recorded cases in 1996; 51 in 1997 and 59 so far this year, and not three as originally indicated by the Department but later clarified in the Dail.
The authority's chief executive, Dr Patrick Wall, said progress in setting up a disease surveillance centre would help ensure such discrepancies did not arise in future. It also meant the days of notoriously unreliable figures on Irish food-borne illness and "underreporting" of cases would be over.
A specialist in public health, Dr Darina O'Flanagan, has been appointed director of the centre.