CIFOR Publishes Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response

By Ricardo Carvajal –

The Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (“CIFOR”) has published guidelines intended to help local, state and federal agencies improve their response to foodborne disease outbreaks. The guidelines address planning and preparation, surveillance and outbreak detection, investigation of clusters and outbreaks, control measures, multijurisdictional outbreaks, and legal preparedness.  Although targeted to public health officials, the guidelines should be useful to food company officials who are unfamiliar with public health agency responses to foodborne disease outbreaks.  Hyman, Phelps & McNamara’s Ricardo Carvajal served as a reviewer for the guidelines.  The report is available on CIFOR’s web site.