As a funded CoE site, an important part of our mission is to serve as a resource for local, state, and federal public health professionals who respond to foodborne illness outbreaks. We can provide training, assistance, or technical support in epidemiological, laboratory, and environmental investigations of foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak investigations. We are open to your specific ideas of how we can best serve as a resource for you, and will tailor our services to meet your needs. We do have a (somewhat limited) budget to support travel to help provide these services.
Some possible ideas include:
- You could send one or more of your staff to MDH for a day or two (or longer if you’d like) to compare surveillance and investigation systems, and to brainstorm about potential improvements;
- MDH staff could visit your agency to compare surveillance and investigation systems, and to brainstorm about potential improvements;
- MDH could visit your agency, or attend a regional/statewide meeting, to put on an outbreak investigation workshop or other form of training for local or state public health professionals; for example, we could help jurisdictions walk through the CIFOR Guidelines Toolkit.
- You could ask MDH to provide assistance or technical support in the design or conduct of a challenging foodborne outbreak investigation. This support could range from a short telephone consultation to more in depth on-site technical support.
- We would entertain any other ideas you can think of – just let us know.
Outbreak Investigation Case Series
E. coli O157:H7 Associated with Prepackaged Salad, 2005
Salmonella I 4,[5], 12:i:- Associated with Coleslaw at a Restaurant, 2015
Listeria monocytogenes Associated with Soft Cheese, 2013
E. coli O157:H7 Associated with Hazelnuts, 2010
E. coli O157:H7 Associated with Ground Beef Patties, 2007