Traceback investigations of recent outbreaks of Escherichia coli O157:H7 linked to romaine lettuce

Leafy greens contaminated with STEC are a significant public health problem and were the source of 40 outbreaks in the United States and Canada from 2009 to 2018. Scientists from the FDA and CDC share the investigation process of recent outbreaks of E. coli in leafy greens (Irvin et al., 2021. An Overview of Traceback Investigations and Three Case Studies of Recent Outbreaks of Escherichia coli O157:H7 Infections Linked to Romaine Lettuce J Food Prot (2021) 84 (8): 1340–1356). Traceback investigations of three outbreaks of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infections linked to romaine lettuce in 2018 and 2019 were examined to demonstrate challenges, limitations, and opportunities for improvement. The three outbreaks resulted in a total of 474 illnesses, 215 hospitalizations, and 5 deaths. Challenges in the investigation included the time it took to initiate a traceback, limited product-identifying information, lack of record-keeping systems, and comingling of products from multiple suppliers. More work is needed to improve and standardize strategies to improve the speed at which sources are identified and prevent additional illnesses. @ https://meridian.allenpress.com/jfp/article/84/8/1340/463972/An-Overview-of-Traceback-Investigations-and-Three