The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed in a new study published Tuesday that sick food workers were a major driver of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants, including The most common pathogen is identified as norovirus.
The study, conducted by the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, covered 800 outbreaks of foodborne illness in U.S. restaurants between 2017 and 2019, reported by 25 state and local health departments. Kay, CNN reported.
According to the study, the most commonly identified virus was norovirus (47%), followed by salmonella (19%).
The first is related to seafarers’ disease, which is highly contagious and causes vomiting and diarrhea two days after infection.
The latter causes diarrheal diseases that begin two to three days after infection. Salmonella can also cause abdominal pain, infection, chills, nausea and vomiting.
The study highlighted that “contributing factors were identified in nearly two-thirds of restaurant-related foodborne illness outbreaks. 41% of these were linked to workers handling and contaminating food while sick.” “
As restaurants were surveyed for data collection, it was also found that they had policies aimed at preventing sick staff from working, with less than half (44%) offering sick leave.
The authors of the study noted that “extending paid sick leave to more restaurant workers could prevent food contamination by protecting the income of restaurant workers who typically work for low hourly wages and tips.” do.”
Sarah Sorcher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, DC, said: “This issue illustrates very clearly how the health of workers and consumers are connected. When sick workers are forced to stay home, If allowed, everyone benefits.”
The study also found differences in communication between restaurants and workers.
While most restaurants had written policies regarding staff reporting their illness, asking them to report specific symptoms, only a minority (23%) reported all five symptoms. They should stay home for: vomiting, diarrhea, ulcers with pus, sores. Sore throat with fever, or jaundice.
The percentage of restaurants that reported an outbreak was only 16 percent and followed four key recommendations. They had a policy that sick staff should tell the manager when they were not feeling well, staff were urged to report illness any time they had one of the five warning signs, restaurants did not allow workers to work while sick, and workers were told about five symptoms that should keep them home from work.
The CDC also noted that more comprehensive food safety policies could also reduce contamination.
“Obviously, encouraging employees who are clearly sick to stay home is good policy. Whether or not they do so when faced with the prospect of not getting paid can be a problem. Especially if they’re not that sick yet.” says Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in foodborne illness cases.
“While expanding access to paid sick leave is important,” he said, “it probably won’t prevent all worker-associated outbreaks, because people are often contagious before they know they’re sick. “
“There is a significant minority of cases where people are asymptomatic.”
They said.
“So they’re coming to work and they don’t know if they’re sick at all, and they’re transmitting salmonella or norovirus, or they’re at the very beginning of their illness and so they’re not sick enough to stay home, Marler added.