Objective  To explore prevalent pathogens of foodborn diseases in Nanjing city, Jiangsu province in 2018 and to provide evidences for active surveillance and early warning on foodborn diseases.

  Methods  Clinical information and stool specimens for pathogen detection were collected among 1 246 foodborn disease patients at 17 sentinel hospitals for active surveillance on foodborn disease in the city during 2018.

  Results  Totally 110 pathogenic strains were isolate from all the specimens and the overall detection rate of pathogen was 8.83%. Among 442 specimens with virus detections, 38 (8.60%) were positive for pathogenic virus. There were statistically significant differences in the detection rate of Salmonella (χ² = 13.921, P < 0.001), Vibrio parahaemolyticus (χ² = 22.836, P < 0.001), and norovirus (χ² = 30.287, P < 0.001) and in the overall detection rate of pathogenic virus (χ² = 44.635, P < 0.001) among the foodborn disease patients at various ages.

  Conclusion  The results of the active surveillance could contribute to analyzing prevalence characteristics of foodborn diseases and developing targeted prevention measures.