Sick workers remain a major contributor to the spread of foodborne illnesses at restaurants and other food establishments, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Tuesday.
The CDC report covered data from 2017 to 2019, finding about 40% of foodborne illness outbreaks with known causes were partly associated with food contamination by a sick or infectious worker.
Norovirus was the most common foodborne illness outbreak during the years of the study, which used National Environmental Assessment Reporting System (NEARS) data on 800 foodborne illness outbreaks associated with 875 retail food establishments. The outbreaks were reported to NEARS by 25 state and local health departments, the study said.
Norovirus accounted for 47% of outbreaks that the CDC identified. Salmonella, a bacteria that causes diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps, accounted for nearly 18.6%.
The report recommended restaurants develop and enforce policies that require sick workers to notify their manager if they have symptoms and to stay home if they're ill.
“Restaurants with policies requiring workers to report illness to managers were less likely to have employees who worked while ill,” the report said. “Most outbreak establishments with manager interview data had written or verbally communicated policies requiring ill workers to tell managers when they were ill (91.7%) and restricting or excluding ill workers (85.5%) from working.
“However,” the report said, “managers indicated that their ill worker policies did not include all of the five symptoms of illness itemized in the FDA Food Code (i.e., vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, sore throat with fever, and lesion with pus).”
About 40% of outbreaks with identified contributing factors had at least one reported factor associated with food contamination by an ill or infectious food worker, the study’s authors said.
Investigators conducted an interview with an establishment manager in 679 (84.9%) outbreaks. Of the 725 managers interviewed, most (91.7%) said their establishment had a policy requiring food workers to notify their manager when they were ill, and 66% also said these policies were written.
“Retail food establishments can reduce viral foodborne illness outbreaks by protecting food from contamination through proper hand hygiene and excluding ill or infectious workers from working,” the study said.
Most managers interviewed (665 of 725 [91.7%]) said their establishment had a policy requiring food workers to notify their manager when they were ill, and the policy was written (439 of 665 [66%]), the study said. About 75% (504 of 665 [75.8%]) had policies that required ill food workers to tell managers their symptoms; 452 (68%) specified vomiting or diarrhea (each) as symptoms workers needed to tell managers about.
Fewer policies mentioned sore throat with fever (328 [49.3%]), lesion with pus (265 [39.8%]), and jaundice (182 [27.4%]).
“Only 23% (153) of policies listed all five symptoms workers needed to tell managers about,” the study noted.
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