"Deja Food: – The Collaborative Investigation into a Recurrent Salmonella Outbreak”
Abstract
Background: In August of 2022, twenty-eight salmonellosis reported eating food from sister restaurants A and B, which prompted Fulton County Board of Health (FCBOH) and Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) to launch an outbreak investigation which linked the cases to menu items containing undercooked egg. When new cases reporting the food outlets began to surface in July 2023, DPH and FCBOH along with the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) and FDA sprang into action.
Methods: FCBOH conducted routine interviews with patients using a standard survey. Additional interviews were conducted to determine menu items consumed by cases who reported eating at the implicated restaurants. Whole genome sequencing was performed to identify additional cases associated with the outbreak. DPH, FCBOH, and GDA staff conducted an on-site visit at Restaurant A and collected 60 environmental swabs from the restaurant to locate possible sources of infection. The FDA visited the egg farm which supplies both restaurants to conduct environmental sampling.
Results: Through these methods, twenty-six patients were identified in association with Restaurants A and B. The majority of the patients reported consuming menu items that commonly use raw egg, such as tiramisu and pasta carbonara. Though the environmental swabs from the restaurant did not return positive salmonella results, FDA conducted further testing of the egg farm used by restaurants. Preliminary environmental testing returned positive results for Salmonella in multiple locations in the egg farm.
Conclusion: While the restaurant’s egg supplier is the suspected source of both the 2022 and 2023 salmonellosis outbreaks, the investigation is ongoing. Whole genome sequencing is currently being conducted to match the samples from the egg farm to the linked cases. Monitoring is ongoing to identify any cases linked with the restaurants. FCBOH continues to work with the restaurants to determine best practices for making and serving undercooked items.
Keywords
Epidemiology, Environmental Health, Salmonella, public health interventions, foodborne disease outbreaks
"Deja Food: – The Collaborative Investigation into a Recurrent Salmonella Outbreak”
Background: In August of 2022, twenty-eight salmonellosis reported eating food from sister restaurants A and B, which prompted Fulton County Board of Health (FCBOH) and Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) to launch an outbreak investigation which linked the cases to menu items containing undercooked egg. When new cases reporting the food outlets began to surface in July 2023, DPH and FCBOH along with the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) and FDA sprang into action.
Methods: FCBOH conducted routine interviews with patients using a standard survey. Additional interviews were conducted to determine menu items consumed by cases who reported eating at the implicated restaurants. Whole genome sequencing was performed to identify additional cases associated with the outbreak. DPH, FCBOH, and GDA staff conducted an on-site visit at Restaurant A and collected 60 environmental swabs from the restaurant to locate possible sources of infection. The FDA visited the egg farm which supplies both restaurants to conduct environmental sampling.
Results: Through these methods, twenty-six patients were identified in association with Restaurants A and B. The majority of the patients reported consuming menu items that commonly use raw egg, such as tiramisu and pasta carbonara. Though the environmental swabs from the restaurant did not return positive salmonella results, FDA conducted further testing of the egg farm used by restaurants. Preliminary environmental testing returned positive results for Salmonella in multiple locations in the egg farm.
Conclusion: While the restaurant’s egg supplier is the suspected source of both the 2022 and 2023 salmonellosis outbreaks, the investigation is ongoing. Whole genome sequencing is currently being conducted to match the samples from the egg farm to the linked cases. Monitoring is ongoing to identify any cases linked with the restaurants. FCBOH continues to work with the restaurants to determine best practices for making and serving undercooked items.
