According to Health Canada, foodborne disease is responsible of more than 4 million cases per year. In United States, more than 48 million people get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3000 die every year in United States due to foodborne diseases according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Cross-contamination from the raw materials, during the process or on working surface has to be rapidly detected. Good manufacturing practices (GMP) and hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) can help to reduce the incidence of contamination. However, the development of sensitive and rapid methods of detection is still an important need. Standard culture-based methods request the consumption of large amounts of media, are time-consuming and interferences can occur when samplings are done in complex food matrices. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods are new technologies. These methods show high level of specificity and sensitivity because they can detect nucleic acid sequences of target bacteria. However, they require an expensive instrumentation and trained scientific technicians. This review is focusing on the development of new simple, sensitive, specific, and time-saving technologies in order to detect quickly foodborne pathogens for application in food industries.
Part of the book: Biosensing Technologies for the Detection of Pathogens