Food-borne acute diarrhea (AD) or food poisoning is one of the leading causes of hospitalization. However, the actual number of foodbome diarrhea is many times bigger than the reporting system data. This study aimed to assess the status of food-bome AD in Thai Nguyen city. The results showed that the incidence of diarrhea in two weeks is rather high (1,39 percent), of which 94 percent of cases were AD transmitted by food. Hospital statistics only repreisented partly its reality, every one case of AD in hospitals was equivalent to 18 cases in the community, one case of AD transmitted by food in hospital was equivalent to 40 cases in the community. The majority of patients with AD had home tffiatment (84.69 percent) and bought pharmacy without prescription (85.29 percent) whereas hospital treatment accouted for a small percentage (12.5 percent).