National Botulism Surveillance

Key points

  • CDC collects, analyzes, and disseminates national surveillance data on bacterial foodborne illnesses, including botulism.
  • Surveillance for cases and outbreaks of botulism in the United States is conducted through several surveillance systems.
  • In addition, clinical consultation facilitates collection of information on suspected cases of botulism.
Dark blue map of the United States on a lighter blue background

Role of Public Health Agencies

Several public health agencies in the United States provide clinical consultation and antitoxin, when indicated, for suspected cases of botulism. They are:

Non-infant botulism
Infant botulism

Botulism case consultations provide expert guidance to clinicians. Consultations also facilitate the collection of information for all suspected botulism cases reported in the United States.

Because these agencies are the only sources of antitoxin in the United States, all or almost all recognized cases of botulism are recorded.*

*Some cases might not be recognized either because of misdiagnosis or because mildly affected persons might not seek medical care.

Transmission categories

For surveillance purposes, CDC categorizes human botulism cases into four transmission subtypes:

  • Foodborne botulism
  • Wound botulism
  • Infant botulism
  • "Other" botulism (includes adult intestinal colonization, iatrogenic botulism, and unknown routes of transmission)

See the case definition for each subtype >

Case surveillance

National case surveillance for botulism is made of two components, case reporting and case notification.

Case reporting

Cases of laboratory-confirmed botulism are reported to CDC through the National Botulism Surveillance System (NBSS).

Annual summaries

See summaries for earlier years on CDC Stacks >

Case notification

State and local health departments send de-identified data about confirmed cases botulism to CDC through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS).

Outbreak information

National Outbreak Reporting System collects information on outbreaks of botulism in the United States.

To learn about the Clostridium botulinum outbreaks reported to CDC:

  1. Go to NORS Dashboard
  2. Set your search parameters, being sure to select "Clostridium" as the etiology
  3. At the bottom of the page, select "Download current search data"
  4. Sort by "Genus Species" or select the arrow next to that heading to select only "Clostridium botulinum"
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Content Source:
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID)