Universities have a tough time with norovirus. Close quarters, not-the-best-personal-hygiene and cafeterias are all factors in spreading the pathogen around. Brae Surgeoner, Doug and I had a paper published in the September 2009 Journal of Environmental Health about some research we conducted in the Winter of 2006. The study came about because a whole bunch of kids in the University of Guelph's residence system started puking from an apparent norovirus outbreak. There were lots of handwashing signs up and we wanted to know whether they changed hygiene behavior (especially if kids were using the tools available when entering the cafeteria). Turns out that the kids weren't doing as good of a job at hand hygiene as they reported to us. According to our study, Observed compliance with prescribed hand hygiene recommendations occurred 17.4% of the time. Despite knowledge of hand hygiene protocols and low compliance, 83.0% of students indicated that they practiced correct hand hygiene during the outbreak.

According to CNN Rider University in New Jersey is dealing with a noro outbreak that has sent students to hospital, which might be connected to repeat offenders Princeton.

About 40 students at a university in New Jersey have been taken to hospitals for treatment after an outbreak of what authorities believe is the norovirus. The Rider University students, at the school's campus in Lawrenceville, were brought to hospitals late Wednesday night, the school said Thursday. The suspected outbreak comes a week after an outbreak began at nearby Princeton University, which is still under way, officials said.

"We are coordinating treatment information with that university. We have also informed neighboring institutions," Rider said on its website.
Some of those taken to hospitals have been discharged and returned to campus.

Below in a food safety infosheet detailing another Princeton-related outbreak from 2008.

 

Most of the stuff I've worked on in the past ten years has something to do with evaluating and supporting food safety culture. bites, barfblog, infosheets and reality-based research are all about providing information to make risk-based decisions and assessing where there might be gaps.
The ultimate goal is less sick people.

But as one of my mentors Gord Surgeoner once told me, businesses wont pay attention to food safety unless it generates revenue or some how keeps them from losing money. Making people sick is bad business. So is spending money on training programs or handwashing signs if there isn't a measurable return on investment.

I've been to lots of talks where smart food safety folks were supposed to present about their food safety culture, but really have only shared their training program requirements. And while maybe they are measuring it, no one talks about their return on investment.

In a paper published in 2011,  Doug, Casey Jacob and I wrote:

Maintaining a food safety culture means that operators and staff know the risks associated with the products or meals they produce, know why managing the risks is important, and effectively manage those risks in a demonstrable way. In an organization with a good food safety culture, individuals are expected to enact practices that represent the shared value system and point out where others may fail.
Training is part of it. So is having some sort of verification that staff and supervisors are actually reducing risks. It's pretty easy to point to a poor food safety culture - it's more difficult to define a good one. But one of the indicators is the "dude wash your hands factor" - pointing out where others fail and modeling the right practice.

Conagra, one of the biggest food companies in North America, and source of a few foodborne illness outbreaks in the past few years, is trying to step up their internal assessment of food safety culture, and sharing it publicly.

In the January 2012 issue of Food Technology, the ConAgra food safety crew shared their approach to assessing their food safety culture (at least the self reported values part) and how they used the results to change the way they train and support good practices in their plants.

Administering a survey to all plant personnel—line workers as well as supervisors and management—is the first step in the assessment process. Having all employees take part in the survey is important, as it sets the stage for communicating that everyone contributes to the plant’s food safety culture and that food safety is everyone’s responsibility. The act itself of taking the survey increases awareness of the concept of food safety culture, gets people talking about food safety culture, and ultimately drives toward improvements.

Their main findings support the approach we use with much of our work - tell people about consequences (both positive and negative),  help staff learn from past mistakes and appreciate a community with shared values:

1. Employee desire
• Both employees and leaders want food safety held up as an equal to personal safety, with both groups talking about the need to inspire employees around food safety.
• Participants said they specifically wanted to know more about lessons learned from food safety issues and incidents and how they would prevent future problems.
2. Teamwork
• Employees want to be able to rely on one another.
• Employees felt that there needs to be a good balance of supervisor responsibility and their own responsibility, but felt that at the end of the day, they are personally accountable.
3. Recognition
• Employees were proud of the plant’s food safety performance and understood that it deserved recognition. Recognition breeds motivation.
• Suggestions were made to reinstitute food safety and recognition committees to help drive engagement from the floor.

Great stuff, especially the recognition that surveys and focus groups are just the start (people tend to lie), I hope Conagra continues on this path, publishes this stuff in a peer-reviewed journal, shares some of their further assessments and market it to their customers
It would also be nice for others to know what ConAgra's return on investment for food safety culture is.

Like many folks, Dani and I used to get together with a bunch of friends each year to watch the Super Bowl. And the event rarely lived up to the hype. While it was fun to hang out and exchange snarky comments about the half-time show, I never really ended up watching the game. Now I prefer to stay home, quietly watch (which I remind Dani is the last football game for 6+ months) in my recliner and make snarky comments about the halftime show online.

On the menu at our house this year was baby back ribs, baked potatoes and jalapeno poppers. Unhealthy eating and the Super Bowl go hand-in-hand.

In an attempt to exploit every possible Super Bowl storyline, ESPN rehashed one of their favorite investigative journalism methods and ran a profile on food safety at Indianapolis host site Lucas Oil Stadium.

Outside the Lines'" The File recently acquired 2011 Marion County health department inspection records for the 181 food and beverage outlets inspected at Lucas Oil Stadium and found that 25, or 14 percent, of the locations had critical violations that showed up during routine inspections. A 2010 "Outside the Lines" piece that examined food safety at all professional sports stadiums showed that about 7 percent of the vendors at Lucas Oil Stadium had racked up critical violations -- problems that could lead to illness.
Among the violations found in the stadium were expired tomatoes and onions, a chef who didn't wash his hands, a microwave covered in gunk, gnats in an onion bin and hamburger patties toiling in a steamer at lukewarm temperatures -- a situation ripe for bacteria.
Expired tomatoes and onions? What does that mean?

Handwashing problems and not-so-hot-holding of cooked burgers are problems. Both actions have led to illnesses recently.
In a predictable turn, coverage went from the risky to yuck factor:
Lucas Oil Stadium first came under scrutiny over food practices in 2009, when a local TV station reported 42 critical food safety violations, including several that cited examples of dead mice or mice droppings near food and meal-preparation surfaces -- even in an oven -- and live mice running through a loge-level kitchen. The head of the county's food safety program at the time said there was a "widespread rodent problem."

Not to be left out of the discussion, International Business Times also ran a story about food safety - this one about an illness that MVP Eli Manning's had a couple of weeks ago. Although reported at the flu, a New York State MD, Dr. Gerald Deas thought that it was more likely that Eli was suffering from an E. coli infection.

The  quarterback may be getting ready to run his team's offense Sunday in the 2012 Super Bowl, but in the days running up to the Giants' 20-17 win in San Francisco on Jan. 23, he likely had E. Coli, according to Dr. Gerald W. Dean of New York.

The medical doctor wrote in a Feb. 1 column in Frost Illustrated, a local Indianapolis-area newspaper, that his professional opinion was that  was sick with E. Coli, despite the fact that it was reported that he had the flu.

"A few days prior to the battle of the Giants with the San Francisco 49ers, Eli Manning was struck in his gut with a bacteria known as E. coli. It was reported in the press thathe had had a bout with the flu, which I doubted," Dr. Dean wrote Feb. 1 in Frost Illustrated. "It was further reported that he missed practice for the big game due to running back and forth to relieve himself, which could have been diarrhea."
Dr. Dean goes on to say that as he examined press photographs and videos of Eli Manning in the days leading up to the NFC Championship "it was obvious that he was washed out and looked totally dehydrated, which diarrhea can cause."

"Personally, I think all superstars, whether they be man or animals should be carefully monitored for drugs, diet and drinking habits before championship games or races," Dr. Dean wrote. "Millions of dollars are being bet on the outcome of a particular event and something like a simple bacteria such as E. coli can change the outcome of a sporting event and its participants."

Uh, yeah, that's some nice detective work there. Could have been noro as well.
 

Translated by Albert Amgar
 

Le département de la santé de Caroline du Nord a signalé une éclosion à norovirus ces dernières semaines, permettant aux responsables de la santé de l’État d’émettre une alerte.

Plus de 125 clients d’un restaurant de Conover, Caroline du Nord, sont tombés malades à cause de norovirus mi-janvier ; la plupart des personnes ont été malades après avoir mangé au restaurant Harbor Inn Seafood, les 13 et 14 janvier, mais quelques clients sont devenus malades très récemment après avoir y mangé le 20 janvier.

Bien que l’origine de l’aliment n’ait pas été identifiée, des victimes disent que les personnes présentes à la party qui sont tombées malades après avoir mangé chez Harbor Inn Seafood, sont celles qui ont mangé de la salade composée.

Les salades peuvent être préparées par une personne qui ne se voit pas comme étant un manipulateur d’aliments. Norovirus,

spécifiquement durant les mois d’hiver, est stable dans l’environnement et peut survivre et infecter pendant des semaines après une contamination.

Des infections à norovirus peuvent avoir lieu sans symptômes.

Les personnes infectées par norovirus peuvent libérer d’importantes quantités de particules virales lors de vomissements et de diarrhées.

L’excrétion virale (présence du virus dans les selles) peut parfois durer pendant 3 semaines après que les symptômes soient terminés.

Norovirus peut persister sur des surfaces de cuisine pendant plus de six semaines.
La plupart des désinfectants pour les mains ne sont pas efficaces pour réduire norovirus.

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