A streamlined Outbreak Response Protocol has improved the efficiency of public health’s response to confirmed or suspected food and waterborne illness outbreaks.
Micro-organisms such as Norovirus or E. coli bacteria can get into food or water in a variety of ways. If contaminated food or water is consumed by a person or group of people, they can get sick usually with gastrointestinal symptoms shortly after consuming the contaminated product. The Health Unit gets alerted when a number of people get sick especially if a common food or water exposure is suspected.
A prompt response is needed to assess the situation and to get an outbreak swiftly under control and prevent others from being exposed.
Most incidents involve only a few people and the assessment and response by the Health Unit can be quick. However, some incidents can be much larger and unfold fairly rapidly. In these situations, a lot needs to happen quickly and many people, including Public Health Inspectors and other staff, are needed to get the work done.
The new Outbreak Response Protocol simplifies the coordination of the investigation.
“The new approach is based on the Incident Management System (IMS)” says Lee Sieswerda, Manager of Environmental Health. “We have used the IMS for emergencies but we did not typically apply the IMS framework to community-based outbreaks. We realized though that there was a real opportunity here to make things work more efficiently for us.”
The IMS approach defines lead roles and responsibilities and communications processes. Also included in the protocol are up-to-date practices in community outbreak management and relevant forms and templates have been developed to quickly be applied when needed.
The IMS approach is very flexible because it is scalable to any size of incident. A response may start small but quickly evolve into a large event, where many tens or hundreds of people in the community may be impacted.
“This improved internal response protocol will help us respond efficiently and effectively to a community outbreak or suspected outbreak regardless of its size,” says Sieswerda. “It has been activated twice since April 2016. Both times, it worked extremely well.”