Question

18. Aside from talking with farm patrons who contracted E. coli O157:H7 infection, who else should you interview to help determine what could have been the source of the illness versus what did not cause illness?

Answer 1

The farm patrons have contracted E.Coli O157:H7 infection but in order to find out the source or the possibility of the spread of the infection, more people need to be interviewed. This helps in finding the source of the illness and as well as cause of the disease. By interviewing it helps in identifying the victims, the possibility or source of exposure, potential vehicle which might have carried the illness and hence it helps in preventing the further outbreak. The interview will include couple of these people

· All the visitors in the farm in the past one week or so and hence it will help in understanding any of them had any symptoms of the infection. If anyone showed any symptoms, they should be further interviewed on their point of contact as well as what they consumed.

· To understand if it is an environmental or food contamination, people showing the symptoms should be interviewed of what they consumed or the places they visited.

· The sellers of the farm product in market must be interviewed to understand if they are showing symptoms after consuming something.