CDC collects, analyzes and shares national data on bacterial foodborne illnesses, including botulism. Several surveillance systems track botulism cases and outbreaks, and clinical consultation on suspected cases feeds them too.
Image from CDC's page
Who clinicians call
A few public health agencies give doctors expert consultation on suspected botulism and release antitoxin when it's needed:
| Botulism type | Agency |
|---|---|
| Non-infant | CDC Botulism Consultation Service; Alaska Division of Public Health; California Department of Public Health; Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment |
| Infant | the Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention Program, California Department of Public Health |
These agencies are the only sources of antitoxin in the United States, so every consultation also records a suspected case — and all or almost all recognized cases are counted. Some cases are still missed: they may be misdiagnosed, or mildly ill people may never seek care.
Four kinds of botulism
For surveillance, CDC sorts human cases by how they were acquired (case definitions):
- Foodborne
- Wound
- Infant
- Other — adult intestinal colonization, iatrogenic botulism, and unknown routes
Two streams of case data
| How it works | |
|---|---|
| Case reporting | laboratory-confirmed cases go to CDC through the National Botulism Surveillance System (NBSS) |
| Case notification | state and local health departments send de-identified data on confirmed cases through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) |
NBSS annual summaries: 2021 · 2020 · 2019 · 2018 · 2017. Earlier years are on CDC Stacks.
Outbreaks
The National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS) collects information on botulism outbreaks. To find Clostridium botulinum outbreaks reported to CDC:
- Open the NORS Dashboard.
- Set your search, choosing "Clostridium" as the etiology.
- At the bottom of the page, choose "Download current search data."
- Sort or filter the "Genus Species" column to keep only Clostridium botulinum.
Sources
Based on "National Botulism Surveillance," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.cdc.gov
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