Foodborne Illness Case Study

Foodborne illness also termed as foodborne disease or simply food poisoning is caused due to consumption of contaminated food. It is a common illness but effects millions of people worldwide, and can prove itself to be deadly. Some common foodborne illnesses include botulism, cholera, salmonellosis and shigellosis (Foodborne illness primer work group). Foodborne illness can be a symptom of almost 250 different diseases that can be caused due to bacteria, viruses or a variety of other parasites that can contaminate the food. Most common foodborne infections caused by bacteria are due to Campylobacter and Salmonella species (WebMD).

It is estimated that every year almost 76 million people are affected with some kind of foodborne illness, 0.3 million are hospitalized while the death toll is 5,000 in USA (Foodborne illness primer work group).

The current case study concerns the situation of diarrheal outbreak aboard the cruise. The ship named as Warped Imagination was cruising towards Miami. There were 2500 passengers and 1200 crew members on board. The chief medical officer of this ship has been keeping record of the affected members. By the fifth

who ate them and those who didn’t. But if we look at the trend of watermelon, its attack rate started with 5.84 in the people who ate it, while 0.60 in those who did not. As the time progressed, the attack rate started increasing in watermelon consumers for example on day 3 the attack rate was 12.30. It is interesting to note that the attack rate also started slightly increasing in those who did not consume it for example on day 3, the rate was 0.25 as compared to 0.11 of day 1. The reason could be cross contamination of kitchen utensils that could be spreading the pathogen. As the days progress, the consumption of watermelon started decreasing and so did the attack rate near the end of five day