Salmonellosis in Restaurant Workers Merits Speedy Outbreak Detection
Doctors who suspect Salmonella infections in patients who are food workers should report the cases to public health officials even before receiving stool culture test results because follow-up of Salmonellosis in food workers can speed the response to restaurant Salmonella outbreaks.
Those are the practical findings of an analysis of Salmonella outbreak surveillance in Minnesota from 1997 through 2004. Researchers reported their results in the November issue of the Journal of Food Protection. Of 4,976 patients with culture-confirmed Salmonella over the study period, 110 (2.2%) were food workers, 20 (18%)of whose cases were linked to illness outbreaks, the group found.
The researchers also found that Salmonella shedding is relatively long in food-worker populations, with a median of 22 days, ranging from 1 to 359 days. They said this finding supports the need for more practical solutions to encourage food workers to stay home when they are sick.
Of the 20 food workers associated with outbreaks, 12 were involved in nine independent outbreaks at the restaurants where they worked. The analysis by researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health and University of Minnesota said the identification of the index food worker in six of these outbreaks was critical to the initiation of outbreak investigations that revealed much larger problems.
"Food workers should be considered an important source of Salmonella transmission, and those identified through surveillance should raise a high index of suspicion of a possible outbreak at their place of work. Food service managers need to be alert to Salmonella-like illnesses among food workers to facilitate prevention and control efforts, including exclusion of infected food workers or restriction of their duties."
