| With many years of team work and after- action reporting, Contra Costa County’s food-borne outbreak responses can operate like a well-oiled machine. Sometimes complacency and assumptions become a barrier and “out of the norm” outbreaks will test the system. In the past 10 years, the Contra Costa County Food-borne and Water-borne Illness Outbreak Response Team had many instances that tested its knowledge, capacity, and collaboration. In this presentation, I will discuss “out of the norm” food-borne illness outbreak responses in Contra Costa County, that resulted in a state-wide food recall, multi-state food recall, exclusion of medical care givers, and Administrative Hearings. In three of the cases, food consumed by the patients were processed from a private residence; one case of food-borne illness resulted in the death of three Contra Costa County residences. |
