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Each year, more than one in five people experience an infectious intestinal disease (IID) in the UK. Norovirus is considered the pathogen most commonly causing acute gastrointestinal symptoms, with perhaps 3 million people affected annually.1,2

Pathogens causing vomiting and diarrhoea often pass from person to person by direct or indirect contact, but over a million cases of IID arise directly from food. As current public health guidance generally advises against attending the GP or hospital in the first instance if experiencing acute vomiting and diarrhoea, pathogens will not be identified in most cases and outbreak data is incomplete.3,4

Doctors should notify the relevant local authority or health board of suspected cases of certain diseases but rules differ across the UK. England and Wales require notification for botulism, food poisoning, and infectious bloody diarrhoea but not norovirus or rotavirus. In Scotland, reporting is expected for clinical syndrome due to Escherichia coli O157 infection, certain pathogens associated with food poisoning but not ‘food poisoning’ as such, and norovirus but not rotavirus. In Northern Ireland, relevant notifiable infectious diseases are “food poisoning” and gastroenteritis in children under 2 years.3,5,6,7

Where samples are analysed by primary diagnostics centres, the top three most commonly detected pathogens are Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp., and norovirus:8

Laboratory reports for common GI infections in England/Wales in 2017
Campylobacter spp.  (Total number of cases detected; 56,105)

Salmonella spp. (8,486)

Norovirus (5,349)

Giardia spp. (4,786)

Cryptosporidium spp. (4,196)

Rotavirus (3,675)

Shigella spp. (1,292)

Escherichia coli - STEC O157 (588)