Frontiers in Public Health Microbiology: Prevention of Foodborne and Waterborne Diseases in the Changing Climate

Dear Colleagues,

Microbial communities have tremendous affinity for moving towards fitness and diversity through vertical and horizontal gene transfer mechanisms thus assuring safety of food and water supplies against natural and anthropogenic pathogens is a daunting task and a moving target. Changes in our climate will unequivocally have pronounced effects on proliferation of microbial pathogens associated with food and water supplies. As an example, it is estimated that only a 1 ºC increase (above 5 ºC) in temperature of an environment could lead to 5 to 10% increases in cases of Salmonellosis.  In the United States alone, a 5% increase in illness episodes could translate to >50,000 additional cases of illnesses of non-typhoidal Salmonella serovars every year. At current times, World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that round 420,000 individuals around the globe, lose their lives every year due to foodborne diseases. Additionally, WHO estimates approximately 2 million deaths each year are attributed to waterborne diarrheal diseases with the vast majority of these deaths occur in children.

The current Special Issue will publish recent advancements for mitigation and/or elimination of foodborne and waterborne microorganisms. Such information would be of utmost importance for assuring the safety of our food and water supplies and for conduct of vulnerability assessments and development of mitigation, adaption, and resilience programs in the landscape of our changing climate. Special emphases is placed on publications of emerging, efficacious, and economically feasible technologies for control of serovars of non-typhoidal Salmonella, various serogroups of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, public health significant serotypes of Listeria monocytogenes, pathogenic species of Vibrio, drug-resistant S. aureus, and various species of Campylobacter, pathogenic Cronobacter spp., and Norovirus. Researchers and practitioners conducting original laboratory studies with sessile and planktonic microorganisms, and those conducting risk assessment analyses, epidemiological research, and critical and systematic review of literature are cordially invited to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue of Microorganisms.

Dr. Aliyar Fouladkhah
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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