An analysis of foodborne outbreak data collection in Austria has found issues with completeness and consistency.
A report published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) shared results of a data flow mapping and analysis methodology applied to Austria’s foodborne outbreaks data collection.
It contains information on the steps, organizations, tools, systems, formats, structural and content metadata, as well as challenges and pain points identified in the country’s internal data flows.
Information came from responses submitted by Austria to a survey as well as discussions in a post‐survey interview in 2024.
Lack of local resources
The methodology used for data collection relies on administrative sources, documents and records. Participating organizations are local and regional health authorities and the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES).
According to the report, one of the main issues is that local health authorities are very often overloaded with a lack of manpower and time to detect an outbreak and perform a proper investigation.
Austrian officials reported the highest degree of satisfaction is achieved for data uniqueness and validity while the lowest is for data completeness and consistency.
As discussed during a post-survey workshop, the main struggle is during collection of samples from local and regional health agencies because of the lack of personnel and expertise. Participants suggested more training and support on data collection.
Sometimes data are not correctly reported during sampling. So, cases that should be noted as foodborne are incorrectly designated as person-to-person, which cannot be double-checked and affects accuracy. Also, each of the nine provinces handle samples differently, which causes an issue with consistency of the data.
There are two sources for the data, the epidemiological reporting system and reports from outbreak investigations by AGES, which are handled separately and require manual work to align the data.
The national data flow process has seven steps including excel files, translation from German to English, and digital tools to change data into the required EFSA format.
Official controls summary
Austria has also published a report on the activities of official control authorities in the areas of food safety, veterinary affairs and animal welfare.
In 2024, there were 40,246 inspections undertaken by authorities from federal states in 35,512 establishments. Violations were found in 2,835 companies, which is similar to the past two years. State veterinary authorities carried out 8,146 inspections in 3,822 meat plants, with deficiencies identified in 1,132 establishments. This is a slight decline compared to the previous year’s figures.
As part of 71 focused actions, areas checked included children’s foods, mycotoxins in baked goods, cereal snacks and breakfast cereals, Listeria in blue cheese, the microbial status of sliced fruits and berries, the composition and labeling of protein bars, and the origin of apricots. Overall, from 9,143 samples, 557 raised concerns. A total of 22 samples were classified as harmful to health and 55 as unsuitable for human consumption.
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