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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.
Lisa Landry - Director, Enteric Surveillance and Population Studies, Public Health Agency of Canada
We're like disease detectives. We use our surveillance system to identify those 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 of the information from our investigation to give us clues as to what is causing the outbreak.
Lisa Landry - Director, Enteric Surveillance and Population Studies, Public Health Agency of Canada
We have a number of state-of-the-art systems that track reported illnesses 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.
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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.
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The Public Health Agency of Canada leads the response to an outbreak when cases are reported from more than one province or territory. The Foodborne Illness Outbreak Response Protocol guides that response and sets out how the various partners work together.
Lisa Landry - Director, Enteric Surveillance and Population Studies, Public Health Agency of Canada
Solving an outbreak is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, except we don't know how many pieces the puzzles has, we don't know what the picture looks like, we many not have all the pieces, and we don't know where to find them.
Lisa Landry - Director, Enteric Surveillance and Population Studies, Public Health Agency of Canada
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.
Lisa Landry - Director, Enteric Surveillance and Population Studies, Public Health Agency of Canada
The interview data are 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 the 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.
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When the confirmed source of an outbreak is a food, and that food is still available, it is recalled from store shelves.
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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.
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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.
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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.