[Expert Solution]: Outbreak Investigation The local health…

Outbreak Investigation The local health department was notified of a potential food-borne outbreak of gastroenteritis in Greenport, and the epidemic team, including a medical epidemiologist, a microbiology techni¬cian and a nurse, visited the local hospitals to interview the attending physicians, the patients and some of their relatives. Some stool samples were obtained from patients for microbiologic identification of the causative agent. The epidemic team knew that these types of outbreaks usu¬ally occur in a very short time period that lasts no more than a few hours or one to two days after people ingest a contaminated meal. Epidemic investigators gather data to define the distribution of the disease by time (onset time and epidemic curve), place (potential places where the implicated meal was served, such as cafe-terias, restaurants and picnics) and person (the distribution of the disease by age, gender and food items eaten). The findings of the initial investigation included the following information. The distribution of the disease by person (age and gender) was found as follows: