Estimating the burden of foodborne diseases

Each year worldwide, an estimated 866 million – almost 1 in 9 people – fall ill after eating contaminated food, resulting in 1.52 million deaths. Children under the age of 5 bear nearly one-third of all cases of foodborne diseases. WHO estimated that 57.1 million years of healthy lives are lost due to eating unsafe food globally each year.

Foodborne diseases are preventable and WHO has a critical role in taking global leadership in investment and coordinated action across multiple sectors in order to build strong and resilient national food safety systems and provide consumers with tools to make safe food choices. With food safety receiving relatively little political attention, especially in developing countries, having a reliable data on the actual national burden of foodborne diseases is essential to draw public attention and mobilize political will and resources to combat foodborne diseases.

World Health Assembly Resolution 73.5 (WHA73.5) mandated WHO to monitor regularly and to report to Member States on the global burden of foodborne and zoonotic diseases at national, regional and international levels. It also mandated the preparation of a new report on the global burden of foodborne diseases with up-to-date estimates of global foodborne disease incidence, mortality and disease burden in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). To achieve this resolution, WHO released a complete set of estimates in 2026, and the underlying databases will be regularly updated afterwards.