What are the Best Methods for Preventing Norovirus Outbreaks?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are more than 250 different types of foodborne illnesses.  Yet, norovirus is among the most common. In fact, norovirus is responsible for over 50 percent of foodborne illnesses in the United States , and restaurants are one of the most common sources of an outbreak. So, how does a restaurant reduce its risk of a norovirus outbreak?

The FDA recently released a study in the latest issue of Risk Analysis, the scholarly journal of the Society for Risk Analysis,  that took a closer look at the methods restaurant workers can take to reduce the spread of norovirus. The study’s findings were not unique; in fact, they supported what is already included the FDA Food Code. And, if workers follow this advice according to this study, the spread of norovirus could be drastically reduced. These preventive measures include:

• Stay home if you are ill,
• Washing your hands before preparing food,
• Wearing gloves when preparing food, and
• Not touching ready-to-eat food with bare hands.

This research confirms the fact that a strong food safety program focused on employee hygiene is critical to reduce the spread of foodborne illnesses. In addition, since there is not one single way to prevent norovirus, this study found that the best method of prevention to is to fully comply with and follow the prevention strategies outlined in the Food Code. 

Learn more about norovirus and its spread in the bulletin, “The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Safety Program to Control Its Spread.” 
 

Here's a REALLY Timely Repeat About Norovirus: What Impact Does It Have on Your Restaurant?

In the news right now there are widespread reports of Norovirus outbreaks in the United States. While these outbreaks may be affecting schools and healthcare facilities, we all know the impact a Norovirus outbreak can have on a restaurant. Though we first published this post in mid-December, we thought it was especially important to share it again with you now - it's a really good time to take a closer look at your food safety program to make sure you have measures in place to reduce the risk of norovirus. And so... 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are more than 250 different types of foodborne illnesses. Yet, norovirus is among the most common. In fact, norovirus is responsible for over 50 percent of foodborne illnesses in the United States. And looking at foodborne outbreaks over the last few years, foodservice establishments were the main source of these outbreaks, which are often related to an infected employee practicing poor personal hygiene and subsequently handling food. So what can you do to help ensure your restaurant doesn’t fall victim to a norovirus outbreak?

A strong food safety program that takes norovirus into consideration is critical. In the recent bulletin, “The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Food Safety Program,” I along with Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus and Dr. Elizabeth Bradshaw, both from North Carolina State University, take a closer look at norovirus and the preventive measures, including hand hygiene and surface sanitization, a restaurant can take to help reduce the spread of this foodborne illness.

Download Bulletin - The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Food Safety Program

Find additional Norovirus information and downloads to help build a strong food safety program.

The Future Looks Bright for Food Safety: The Cultivation of Human Norovirus Has Been Achieved!

Norovirus is one of the most common foodborne illnesses and is the leading cause of illness and outbreaks from contaminated food in the United States.  Leading health experts recommend hand hygiene and cleaning and disinfecting contaminated surfaces as two measures restaurant workers can take to reduce the transmission of norovirus. Yet, how do we know if the products we are using are effective in killing norovirus?

Laboratory Testing – Cultivating the Virus
In order to test product efficacy against human noroviruses (HuNoVs), we need to cultivate viruses in cells in laboratory conditions. Different from bacteria and fungi that grow in a Petri dish, which contains a medium such as food for their replication, viruses need alive host cells in order to replicate, or make copies of themselves. In some instances, we can keep some of these cells alive outside of the host organism, and under the right conditions, get viruses to infect these cells and replicate in a laboratory. Once this point is reached, it opens up enormous possibilities for research.

The major barrier in research and development of effective interventions for HuNoVs has been the lack of a robust and reproducible in vitro cultivation system. HuNoVs have been difficult to be cultivated in vitro despite numerous efforts over the last 40 years.

The lack of a reproducible culture system for HuNoVs has forced scientists researching norovirus to use surrogates for studies and for testing disinfectants and other products to show efficacy against the Human Norovirus. Many products available in the market today that claim Norovirus efficacy are based on tests using HuNoVs surrogates. However, despite several similarities surrogates have with HuNoVs, they are not the same.

A Breakthrough in Science
The good news, a group of scientists from Baylor College of Medicine have successfully cultured the human norovirus in intestinal cells. This culture system simulates the human intestinal epithelium, permits human host-pathogen studies of previously non-cultivatable pathogens, and allows the assessment of methods to prevent and treat HuNoV infections such as vaccines, therapeutics and other measures to control the virus in humans, including how we manage norovirus transmission. The new methodology has been tested in different research labs thorough the country and has shown reproducibility and viability.

Although it may take some time for the in-vitro methodology to be available at commercial labs, it is a first step towards measuring how effective disinfectants and food processes are in inactivating infectious HuNovs, which can lead to enhanced guidelines for preventing virus spread, and better products that show efficacy against HuNovs.

So what does this breakthrough in science mean to restaurant owners and operators? It means that as science advances so will your surface disinfecting and sanitizing products. Be sure to be aware of claims products make and ask questions about the safety and effectiveness of the products. You want to be certain the product has been tested against common viruses to ensure the safety of your employees and guests.

For more details, read:
Replication of human noroviruses in stem cell–derived human enteroids
BY KHALIL ETTAYEBI, SUE E. CRAWFORD, KOSUKE MURAKAMI, JAMES R. BROUGHMAN, UMESH KARANDIKAR, VICTORIA R. TENGE, FREDERICK H. NEILL, SARAH E. BLUTT, XI-LEI ZENG, LIN QU,BAIJUN KOU, ANTONE R. OPEKUN, DOUGLAS BURRIN, DAVID Y. GRAHAM, SASIREKHA RAMANI,ROBERT L. ATMAR, MARY K. ESTES
PUBLISHED ONLINE25 AUG 2016
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf5211

Norovirus: What Impact Does It Have on Your Restaurant?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are more than 250 different types of foodborne illnesses. Yet, norovirus is among the most common. In fact, norovirus is responsible for over 50 percent of foodborne illnesses in the United States. And looking at foodborne outbreaks over the last few years, foodservice establishments were the main source of these outbreaks, which are often related to an infected employee practicing poor personal hygiene and subsequently handling food. So what can you do to help ensure your restaurant doesn’t fall victim to a norovirus outbreak?

A strong food safety program that takes norovirus into consideration is critical. In the recent bulletin, “The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Food Safety Program,” I along with Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus and Dr. Elizabeth Bradshaw, both from North Carolina State University, take a closer look at norovirus and the preventive measures, including hand hygiene and surface sanitization, a restaurant can take to help reduce the spread of this foodborne illness.

Download Bulletin - The Importance of Norovirus: Why You Should Have a Good Food Safety Program

Find additional Norovirus information and downloads to help build a strong food safety program.

Risk-Based Handwashing

Changing behaviors within your current culture

The challenge of handwashing in foodservice is rooted in basic human behavior. If the would-be washer can see no reward, he or she becomes a non-washer; this is even true for managers. Handwashing simply becomes a matter of custom, comfort or convenience with no connection to the actual risk. The complexity of a sustainable solution results in operators attacking one barrier at a time, but a holistic approach has a much better chance of success.

Real issues abound. Barriers of language, culture, turnover, absenteeism, productivity, hand sink location, empty dispensers, skin irritation and training time frequently come up as challenges to handwashing at key moments. However, the reality is there is no measurement for a clean hand, no standards for frequency and seldom are employees disciplined for not washing their hands. These barriers actually protect the status quo and endanger the life of the customer, staff and the very business itself.

Handwashing competes with the highly valued indicators of productivity on which managers and staff are measured and rewarded. The risk of a foodborne outbreak is already high but getting much higher by virtue of the current trends in rising punitive damages and threatened executive jail time. Advancements in science like Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) have equipped the CDC Pulse-Net labs with the capability to identify outbreaks previously missed by first-generation systems. 

Measuring Handwashing
Risk management must play a larger role in fixing the time-hardened handwash behaviors. The answer is in process control for which numbers are needed -numbers to reach and sustain goals via the built-in employee Performance Review structure. The steps for a sustainable solution are to first assess the risk, set standards, set the conditions for success, train and finally monitor to motivate the needed behavior change.

The Handwashing For Life Institute has developed tools to help change handwashing behavior. All of these lead to measurement as a way to motivate and sustain hand cleanliness levels and the behaviors required. 

High-touch surfaces frequently harbor pathogens. High levels of pathogens remain invisible but are more likely to cross-contaminate than those surfaces frequently cleaned and measured with either ATP or UV tracing systems. The measurement increases the cleaning frequency.

Handwashing effectiveness can be given a number by using invisible tracing lotion and scanning with a UV light to illuminate areas missed. This training method adds visual impact that helps a workforce better understand the need for a thorough wash. 

A safe-level frequency of washing hands is an important standard to engage the staff in setting. The number is always imprecise, but it is reached through collaboration with peers and their managers. The most dramatic improvement in handwash frequency occurs with the addition of electronic logging of actual washes and comparing them to the employee-agreed safe level standard. In addition, some firms have developed electronic monitoring solutions to help measure and ensure compliance.

Data converts randomness to a process and drives a sustainable handwashing solution. Handwashing becomes clearly understood as a critical risk-based behavior. Now success can be calibrated, celebrated and perpetuated.

What is Hepatitis A?

News of an apparent Hepatitis A outbreak has been making headlines this week. But, what is Hepatitis A? How can it be prevented, and should your restaurant be concerned?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Hepatitis A is a highly contagious liver infection that is usually transmitted either through person-to-person contact or through consumption of contaminated food or water.[1]  Typically, uncooked Hepatitis A-contaminated foods are the source of an outbreak; for example, frozen strawberries are the source for this most recent outbreak.[1]  Yet, according to the CDC, cooked foods can also be a source of infection if the temperature during food preparation is inadequate and does not kill the virus, or if food is contaminated after cooking, as is the case with outbreaks associated with infected food handlers.

Hepatitis A is rare in the United States. In fact, according to the CDC, there were an estimated 2,500 acute Hepatitis A infections in the United States in 2014.[1] It is also one of the few foodborne illnesses that can be prevented by vaccination.[2] Yet, outbreaks can happen, and the good news is this foodborne illness is preventable, if certain measures are taken. These include:

• Washing hands with soap and water – food handlers must always wash their hands with soap and water after using the bathroom and before preparing food
• Wearing gloves – food handlers should always wear gloves when handling or preparing ready-to-eat foods
• Staying home when ill – restaurant workers should stay home from work if they are ill[3]

While Hepatitis A is rare and preventable, it is still important to learn the facts about this foodborne illness.

Additional information can be found on the following websites:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• FoodSafety.gov

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Viral Hepatitis – Hepatitis A Information. Retrieved September 19, 2016, from http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/hav/
2. Foodsafety.gov. Hepatitis A. Retrieved September 19, 2016, from https://www.foodsafety.gov/poisoning/causes/bacteriaviruses/hepatitisa/
3. About Hepatitis. How to Prevent Hepatitis Infection. Retrieved September 19, 2016, from http://www.about-hepatitis.com/hepatitis_prevention#.V-AAHfkrJhE

September is Food Safety Month - Get the Facts

Every year since 2009, the non-profit Partnership for Food Safety Education has addressed food safety myths that people commonly hold and share with others. Over time, more than two dozen myths have been debunked with the FACTS that consumers need to know to help reduce their risk of foodborne illness.

All foods -- regardless of the way they were produced -- need to be handled and stored properly to prevent the growth of harmful bacteria that can cause foodborne illness.

Home Food Safety Mythbusters challenges ideas consumers often have about types of food and preparing and handling food at home -- things like:

“A hamburger that is brown in the middle is safe to eat.”

“A vegetarian is not at risk for foodborne illness.”

“Microwaves kill foodborne pathogens.”

This September for National Food Safety Education Month, the Partnership is highlighting “Top Ten Home Food Safety Myths and Facts.” 

How many of these “Top 10” have you believed over the years? Do you rinse your chicken (not a safety step), but you don’t rinse your melon? The Partnership invites you to take a look at food handling habits, and see if there are any that could be improved. 

The consistent practice of four core home food safety steps -- Clean, Separate, Cook and Chill – including the practice of good hand hygiene before, during and after preparing your favorite meals, can reduce your risk of foodborne illness. And, importantly, it might help you set better and more consistent handling practices that reduce risk to other people in your household, like young children, an elderly relative or an immune-compromised family member. These people are at greater risk for getting sick – and for being hospitalized for a foodborne illness.
 
About Partnership for Food Safety Education:
The Partnership for Food Safety Education delivers trusted, science-based behavioral health messaging and a network of resources that support consumers and health educators. Get free consumer education downloads and register for events at www.fightbac.org.

How a Hand Hygiene Program Can Help Your Employees Stay Healthy and at Work

Are your employees coming to work sick? The answer is most likely, yes. 

A recent poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that at least half of people who work in very public places, like hospitals and restaurants, report going to work when they have a cold or the flu.[1]

In a recent NPR article, Kirk Smith, who oversees foodborne outbreak investigations for the Minnesota Department of Health, stated that restaurant workers coming in sick is one of the biggest food safety problems there is. So, what can be done to overcome this problem? 

First and foremost, restaurant workers should stay home if they are sick, yet we know that isn’t always possible. But, by offering a comprehensive hand hygiene program, an employer may be able to increase employee wellness and reduce absenteeism.

Following a strong hand hygiene regimen, which includes washing hands with soap and water for 20 seconds and then using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer for extra protection, is one of the most important measures we can all take to reduce the spread of germs that can cause illness. In addition, a recent study published in The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that an office equipped with PURELL® Hand Sanitizer and Hand Sanitizing Wipes throughout the workplace recorded 13.4% fewer sick days or unscheduled paid-time-off (PTO) in 2014-2015, as well as 24.3% fewer trips to the doctor for hand hygiene preventable illnesses.[2] This demonstrates the important role hand hygiene plays in helping your workers stay healthy and on the job. 

For more information on this study go to: http://journals.lww.com/joem/Fulltext/2016/06000/Impact_of_a_Comprehensive_Workplace_Hand_Hygiene.25.aspx 

[1] NPR, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The Workplace and Health. July 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016, from http://www.npr.org/documents/2016/jul/HarvardWorkplaceandHealthPollReport.pdf
[2] Arbogast, JW., L. Moore-Schiltz, W. Jarvis, A. Harpster-Hagen, J. Hughes, A. Parker. 2016. “Impact of a Comprehensive Workplace Hand Hygiene Program on Employer Healthcare Insurance Claims plus Costs, Absenteeism, and Employee Perceptions and Practices.” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

How to Keep E.coli from Impacting Food & Restaurant Safety

Although strains of Escherichia coli, or what is commonly known as E.coli, can promote healthy functions within our bodies, some strains can cause serious and contagious illness.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, E.coli is a common foodborne illness that spreads quickly.[1] And, without proper procedures in place, which include processes for food preparation and strong hand hygiene protocols, your restaurant might be at risk for a possible E. coli outbreak. So how can you reduce this risk?

In a recent interview, GOJO Microbiologist Dave Shumaker shares information about the highly contagious strains of E.coli, where they come from, and the measures you can take to mitigate your restaurant’s risk.

[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, E. coli. Retrieved June 9, 2016, from http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/