Resumen

BORIC BONIFAZ, Vesna. Molecular Epidemiology applications to detect illnesses transmitted by food. Latinamerican advances. BIOFARBO [online]. 2008, vol.16, n.1, pp. 92-97. ISSN 1813-5363.

Illnesses caused by contaminated food consuming have been marked as an important cause of mortality  at a world wide level.  The pathogenic organisms implicated in this illnesses are Salmonella, Shigella, Vibrio cholerae, Clostridium botulinum, Escherichia coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes and Campylobacter. In  Latin America, these illnesses represent approximately  70% of the cases belonging to diarrhea, according to data provided by WHO. In Bolivia, the SNIS reports that in the epidemiological week number 20, starting on May,31st 2007, 12.849 cases were detected, and 23% belong to Santa Cruz Department (the one with the most notification), and the medical attentions have a national accumulated number  is 544244 (with an average of 5773 per laboratory), principally in people younger than 5 years old. These illnesses often occur in the form of soft, casual appearances, and the tools to carry out the analysis require molecular biology based techniques that are named “Molecular subtypification”, which is the key to “molecular epidemiology”. The pulsed-field electroforesis has been applied with very good results for the subtypification of many pathogenic bacteries. There are two world wide networks that surveil  illnesses of food transmission: The WHO and the GSS (Global Salmonella Surveillance).  Along with this, there exist the Molecular Subtipification of pathogenic organisms network, of PulseNet. Bolivia is an active participant, and this allows the country to get into new technological advances and their benefits. The results for Latin America have allowed this laboratorios to identify new appearances since 2004, being able to use the oulsed - field electroforesis as a highly discriminatory method, sensible and universal, that contributes to the detection of appearances of this illnesses of disperse manifestation, and thus, detecting the possible source of the illness. This information contributes to decision-making policies, action-generation processes, that will better the food control, which favors Public Health procedures and tourism.

Palabras llave : molecular epidemiology; illnesses appearances; WHO; GSS; PULSENET.