February-April: Spotlight on Global Food Security

February-April: Spotlight on Global Food Security

February-April: Spotlight on Global Food Security

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent this bulletin at 04/07/2014 03:50 PM EDT

Food, Water, & Air Connect Us Globally

“We are all connected by the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. Stopping outbreaks where they start is the most effective and the least costly way to save lives."  ~ Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Experts from CDC and across the world gathered (March 17-20) on the agency's main Atlanta campus to discuss global health security. CDC’s Center for Global Health, host of the meeting, “Prevent, Detect, and Respond: Leveraging CDC's Global Health Programs and Overseas Offices for a Safer US and a Safer World,” underscored that global health security was a CDC priority. 

Throughout the four-day meeting, experts discussed how concentrated efforts between CDC and its country partners could rapidly build and enhance capacities to prevent, rapidly detect, and effectively respond to infectious disease threats. By building and strengthening laboratory networks, information systems, and emergency operations centers, CDC and its partners showed how global health security can be accelerated.

Presenters discussed many examples of global food and water security projects at CDC, including:

• Republic of Georgia: site visits and focused training workshops to build capacity for laboratory based surveillance for foodborne pathogen detection.
• Uganda: implementation of rapid diagnostic testing for cholera.
• Kenya: staff training on a new multiplex bead assay system for serologic antibody surveillance at Kenya Medical Research Institute.
• Haiti: water quality survey of private water vendors in Port au Prince.

To learn more:

• View presentation on global health security demonstration projects in Vietnam and Uganda.
• Read about CDC's role in global food and water security.
• View CDC Foundation's dynamic infographic about global health security, A Health Threat Anywhere Impacts Business Everywhere.

Outbreaks! CDC tracked multiple multistate outbreaks of foodborne illness during February-April, including:    Multistate Outbreak of Multidrug-Resistant SalmonellaHeidelberg Infections Linked to Foster Farms Brand Chicken   As of March 3, CDC received reports of 481 ill people,  including 51 new cases since the last update on January 16. Cases appeared to return to baseline in January; however, ongoing surveillance identified in February that infections from two of the previously rare outbreak strains have again exceeded the number of infections expectedto be reported to PulseNet during this time of year. This investigation continues.

Multistate Outbreak of Listeriosis Linked to Roos Foods Dairy Products As of March 12, Maryland (seven) and California (one) reported eight cases, including one death.Five of the illnesses (two mother-newborn pairs and a newborn) were related to pregnancy Roos Foods issued an expanded and clarifiedrecall on March 1. The US Food and Drug Administration suspended the food facility registration of Roos Foods on March 11. Media outlets covering the story include CBS News*, Food Poisoning Journal*, the Oregonian* and Food Quality News.

Detect and Protect against Antibiotic Resistance

CDC’s Initiative will fight foodborne infection

It’s been called public health’s ticking time bomb. Antibiotic resistance—when bacteria don’t respond to the drugs designed to kill them—threatens to return us to the time when simple infections were often fatal. Today, antibiotic resistance annually causes more than two million illnesses and 23,000 deaths in the United States. Tomorrow, if it continues on its current course, could be even worse.

We need to outsmart antibiotic resistance—now. The Detect and Protect Against Antibiotic Resistance Initiative (known as the AR Initiative) gives us a good head start. The 2015 President’s Budget requests $30 million annual funding level for 5 years for the AR Initiative—part of a broader CDC strategy to target investment to achieve measureable results in four core areas:

• Detect and track patterns of antibiotic resistance.
• Respond to outbreaks involving antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
• Prevent infections from occurring and resistant bacteria from spreading.
• Discover new antibiotics and new diagnostic tests for resistant bacteria.

With a $30 million annual funding level over 5 years, CDC’sAR Initiative could achieve a 25-50% reduction in infections from nightmare bacteria that sicken or kill.  To learn more: Read how CDC's Initiative will fight foodborne infections. Read the CDC's Initiative fact sheet. Read the CDC's collaborative infographic.

Publications

Select CDC food safety publications during February - April, including:

Poultry and Food Safety

• Evaluation of Musculoskeletal Disorders and Traumatic Injuries Among Employees at a Poultry Processing Plant. The report, indicating that line speed is not a big problem in the new USDA poultry inspection overhaul, generated policy interest in Washington DC and media attention.
• Notes from the Field: Multistate Outbreak of Human Salmonella Infections Linked to Live Poultry from a Mail-Order Hatchery in Ohio — March–September 2013.This report notes that 30 states submitted cases of 158 persons infected with outbreak strains of four Salmonella serotypes.

Antibiotic Resistance

• Clinical outcomes of nalidixic acid, ceftriaxone, and multidrug resistant nontyphoidalSalmonella infections compared with pansusceptible infections in FoodNet sites, 2006-2008. This study extends evidence that patients with antimicrobial-resistant nontyphoidal Salmonella infections have more severe outcomes.

Listeriosis

• Notes from the Field: Multistate Outbreak of Listeriosis Linked to Soft-Ripened Cheese —United States, 2013. This report reviews a listerioris outbreak linked to soft cheeses that were likely contaminated during the cheese-making process.

Partners Select food safety resources and news about CDC's partners Mapping genes to uncover food poisoning. Whole genome sequencing is the ultimate DNA fingerprint. Food safety experts broaden their arsenal for decoding the DNA of potentially deadly bacteria and viruses, reports the Associated Press. Everybody’s blogging! Did you know that FDA has its own blog?  Last week Dr. Stephen Ostroff, former deputy director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases discussed his new position as Acting Chief Scientist at FDA and you canread his first blog. Need guidance? The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) released it’s second set of food policy guides showcasing cross-sector partnerships.

Web

• Age matters in the raw milk revolution:  Washington Post reports that, despite warnings from public health officials, distrust of government and a thirst for raw milk have helped fuel the movement to do away with federal and state restrictions. CDC and FDA officials say 55 percent of the victims are younger than 18 and got the beverage from a parent or guardian. “When you give it to a young child who gets anE.coli infection, and their kidneys fail, they didn’t get to make that choice,” said Robert V. Tauxe, the CDC’s deputy director of food-borne, water-borne and environmental diseases.
• Rough, rugged, and raw. Food Safety News reports raw-milk cow-share bill falls flat on the House floor.
• Barfblog - it's not as gross as it sounds. It's a blog where Drs. Powell, Chapman, Hubbell, and assorted food safety friends offer evidence-based opinions on current food safety issues. 

Packaging Science Update following the release of An Atlas ofSalmonella in the United States, 1968-2011, CDC's hands-on, web accessible document providing 40 years of surveillance data on 32 Salmonellaserotypes. The Atlas is not new; it’s been published twice before in book and CD-Rom. But, how far can bound copies of a book or CD travel? What’s new is getting Salmonella data at everyone’s fingertips—providing hands-on web access for the public, the food industry, and researchers. Did it work? Yes! Within hours of the CDC’s press release (and the March 2014 GovD Special Edition) announcing the Atlas, global media paid attention and spread the word. Overnight, the metrics had shifted to show that 90% of viewers were now from the general public see graphs below).

CDC has seen a hunger for our data from more than public health departments.Under theFood Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), CDC is tasked to make our data accessible, but access does not guarantee engagement. There is an art to distribution that goes beyondposting a PDF—it means getting people to explore your science. We found that the 200-page PDF was intimidating. So, we broke it down and added context, an explanation about theImportance of Serotyping and other pages: Salmonella Atlas, 32 Individual Serotypes Reports, and Snapshots of Serotypes.

If you build it they will come. The take-away from this is simple: present solid research in a format to those who can most benefit from accessing it. Enough said.

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