Potentially lethal "superbugs", which are resistant to antibiotics because of abuse of antibiotics and poor husbandry at farm level, will be the subject of a special EU conference in Dublin next month.
The Enter-Net programme has been established to collect data on all human cases of salmonella, which can prove fatal, and on other drug-resistant germs because of concern over the number of food-poisoning cases throughout Europe.
According to Dr Patrick Wall, head of the Food Safety Board, doctors treating infections in humans worldwide use an antibiotic called ciprofloxacin.
"Increasingly doctors are discovering that the drug may not work and this may have disastrous consequences which may result in death or it may take a long time for them to recover," he said.
He said that new superbugs have emerged. In the UK and Ireland, the commonest bacteria causing food poisoning are campylobacter, followed by salmonella. In these cases, animals are the reservoir for infection.
Recently a salmonella, Styphimurium DT104, which is resistant to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulphonamides and tetracylines, has emerged in humans both here and in the UK.
He said 33 per cent of the victims of SDT104 end up in hospital and 3 per cent of patients die, according to recent surveys carried out in the UK.
The pathogen, is also a cause of illness in a wider range of food animals, including cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens and turkeys.
"This creates the potential for a wide range of foodstuffs to become contaminated and Ireland, as a food exporting country, must be extremely careful about this.
"I want to stress that all these bugs can be killed by proper handling and cooking of meat, and the consumer should be aware of that. What we need is a Quality Assurance Programme here which will guarantee the consumer that what they are eating is safe."