Sônia dos Santos Toriani
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Eduardo Manoel Pereira
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Daniela Delwing-de Lima
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Therezinha Maria Novais De Oliveira
Between 2007 and 2017, Brazil registered 99,826 outbreaks of foodborne diseases and 0.84% of those were associated with fish meat intake. It is estimated that approximately 56 million infection cases occur worldwide due to raw or undercooked fish meat containing several disease-causing parasites. Hence, this study aimed to review the literature concerning diseases caused by ingestion of contaminated fish meat. Reviews, case reports and epidemiologic studies were searched in Portuguese, Spanish and English in the databases LILACS, Pubmed, Science Direct, SciElo and Scholar Google using as keywords: transmissive diseases, contaminated fish and human infections were used to retrieve papers from 2014 to 2020. Nine papers, including seven reviews, one case report and one case-control study fulfilled inclusion criteria and presented several consequences of contaminated raw or undercooked fish meat ingestion, which ranged from nemathode, bacterial and toxin diseases that may cause gastrointestinal problems to allergic reactions, lung infection, endemic acute myalgia, bacteremia, meningitis and death. Growing fish meat intake in several dishes presents significant health risk due to the pathogenic potential of toxins and parasites that remain when food is consumed raw or undercooked. Tighter sanitary surveillance, population health education, training and sensitization of health professionals in recognizing and notifying cases might contribute to minimize risk.