In 2011, a Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning (DSP) outbreak occurred in British Columbia (BC), Canada that was associated with cooked mussel consumption. This is the first reported DSP outbreak in BC. Investigation of ill individuals, traceback of product and laboratory testing for toxins were used in this investigation. Sixty-two illnesses were reported. Public health and food safety investigatio...

An outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) involving 27 patients and 14 health-care workers (HCW) was studied. The outbreak started in the hematology unit of the University Hospital Rotterdam, Dijkzigt, The Netherlands, and spread to the surgical unit. Twenty-one patients (77.8%) developed clinical disease, and five died. Subsequently, MRSA was detected in food and in the...

The number of sporadic cases of Cryptosporidium identified in the Stockholm county area increased above the expected limit during October 2010. Additionally, two food-borne outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis occurred in two other Swedish cities: Umeå (4 October) and Örebro (9 October). The outbreak investigations did not reveal any responsible food item, however fresh herbs were suspected. Thirty s...

Next-generation sequencing is being evaluated for use with food-borne illness investigations, especially when the outbreak strains produce patterns that cannot be discriminated from non-outbreak strains using conventional procedures. Here we report complete genome assemblies of two Salmonella enterica serovar Heidelberg strains with a common pulsed-field gel electrophoresis pattern isolated dur...

This article looks at a new approach to expert elicitation that combines basic elements of conventional expert elicitation protocols with formal survey methods and larger, heterogeneous expert panels. This approach is appropriate where the hazard-estimation task requires a wide range of expertise and professional experience. The ability to judge when to rely on alternative data sources often is...

Food and patient isolates from an Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with undercooked ground beef were characterized by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and Shiga-like toxin genotype. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis confirmed the epidemiologically implicated source of the two-state outbreak and differentiated between outbreak and sporadic strains.

We describe a prolonged nosocomial outbreak of Salmonella senftenberg, an uncommon human pathogen. We detected 22 cases of infection due to S. senftenberg that occurred from March 1993 through November 1994 and involved 18 patients and four healthy employees. All infected persons had consumed food prepared by the hospital kitchen. The estimated attack rate for the period of the outbreak was 0.1...

The Situated Action approach to AI emphasizes the role of the environment in the generation and control of behavior; see (Norman 1993) for an introduction. Work to date has focused mainly on activity within spatially and temporally localized environments such as kitchens and video games (Agre & Chapman 1987; Agre & Horswill 1992). How useful is this perspective when larger-scale activities are ...

BACKGROUND During August 2006, a protracted outbreak of Salmonella (S.) Enteritidis infections in a large Hamburg nursing home was investigated. METHODS A site visit of the home was conducted and food suppliers' premises tested for Salmonella. Among nursing home residents a cohort study was carried out focusing on foods consumed in the three days before the first part of the outbreak. Instead...