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The Government of Canada
and food industry
maintain high standards for
food safety practices.
However, no system
is perfect
and outbreaks of enteric illness
happen from time to time.
Identifying outbreaks involves
laboratory surveillance systems
and investigations conducted
by epidemiologists
and laboratories.
We're like disease
detectives
we use our
surveillance
system
to identify
the people
who are sick,
we then confirm
that those sick
people
are part of
an outbreak
we gather
information
from them
in order to
determine
cause.
We collect all the information
from our investigation
to give us clues as to what
is causing the outbreak.
We have a number of
state-of-the-art systems
that track reported
illness in Canada,
they tell us how many
illnesses to expect
in a given time period
in a given area.
When we see a larger
number of people
experiencing illness
than we would expect
our epidemiologists
investigate.
An outbreak is identified
when those sick people
share something in common that
could explain their illness.
The National Enteric
Surveillance Program
is one of the key systems the
Public Health Agency of Canada
uses to identify
and monitor
laboratory-confirmed cases
of enteric illness.
The Public Health Agency of
Canada leads the response
to an outbreak when
cases are reported
from more than one
province or territory.
The Food borne Illness
Outbreak Response Protocol
guides that response
and sets out how
the various partners
work together.
Solving an outbreak is
like putting together
the pieces
of a puzzle,
except we don't know how many pieces
the puzzle has,
we don't know what the
picture looks like,
we may not have all
the pieces,
and we don't know
where to find them.
We start by asking
patients questions
using simple
questionnaires,
to find out where they were,
what they ate, and what they did
in the days before
their illness started.
The interview data are
compiled and analyzed
using various
statistical methods.
Food testing also provides
us with important information
about whether or not
a common food
is the source
of illness.
However if that food has a short
shelf life, like fresh produce,
there may be none
left to test
and that adds to the challenge
of trying to identify
the source of
the outbreak.
When the confirmed source
of an outbreak is a food,
and that food is
still available,
it is recalled from
store shelves.
Epidemiological data
can be inconclusive
due to poor food
history recollection
or lack of contaminated
product to test.
That's why,
in many cases,
a source of an outbreak
is not identified.
Epidemiological
investigations are essential
for responding to food-borne
illness outbreaks.
They also play a key role in
preventing food borne diseases.
Investigations may
find new pathogens,
new food vehicles,
and unsuspected gaps in
the food safety system.
For more information
and updates,
please visit our website
at www.foodsafety.gc.ca
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A message from the
Government of Canada.