Tools
Tools
Al-Abri, Seif S, Al-Jardani, Amina K, Al-Hosni, Mohammed, Kurup, Padmamohan J, Al-Busaidi, Suleiman and Beeching, Nicholas 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7019-8791
(2011)
'A hospital acquired outbreak of Bacillus cereus gastroenteritis, Oman'. Journal of Infection and Public Health, Vol 4, Issue 4, pp. 180-186.
Abstract
Objectives
To investigate the course of a hospital acquired outbreak of Bacillus cereus gastroenteritis outbreak, and the interventions that were taken to prevent such an outbreak from occurring again.
Methods
On May 3–5 2008, 58 cases of gastroenteritis were reported among patients and their attendants in a referral hospital in Oman. All affected had eaten meals served by the hospital kitchen the previous day. An outbreak investigation team conducted active surveillance and interviewed people about symptoms and food consumed on the preceding day in the hospital. Food samples from the kitchen and faecal samples from the kitchen staff and those affected were cultured. An environmental audit of the kitchen was conducted.
Results
The majority of the 58 persons affected by the outbreak were adult females, predominantly attendants of patients. 90% had diarrhoea and 10% had vomiting, usually mild. All those affected were managed symptomatically except for two patient attendants who required intravenous rehydration. The meal exposure histories implicated at least one meal from the kitchen. Many violations of basic food hygiene standards were observed in the kitchen. Toxin producing B. cereus was isolated from faeces of 3/12 (25%) patients and 19/25 (76%) of food handlers, and 35/61 (57%) of food samples from the kitchen.
Conclusion
This is the first report of a nosocomial outbreak of foodborne B. cereus infection from this region. The importance of appropriate epidemiological and microbiological investigation and public relations management is emphasized, in addition to the need for continuing training of food handlers and rigorous enforcement of food hygiene regulations.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | WA Public Health > Preventive Medicine > WA 110 Prevention and control of communicable diseases. Transmission of infectious diseases WA Public Health > WA 4 Works on general hygiene WI Digestive System > WI 100 General works |
| Faculty: Department: | Groups (2002 - 2012) > Clinical Group |
| Digital Object Identifer (DOI): | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiph.2011.05.003 |
| Depositing User: | Users 43 not found. |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Oct 2011 10:00 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Sep 2019 06:26 |
| URI: | https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/2307 |
Statistics
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit Item |