A Food Poisoning Outbreak Involving University Students at the Hohuan Campsite in Pinglin Tpwnship, Taipei County

D. D. Jiang ； W. H. Hsiao ； C. C. Huang ； T. Y. Chiang

《Epidemiology Bulletin》 18卷2期 (2002/02) Pp. 27-44

https://doi.org/10.6525/TEB.200202_18(2).0001

並列摘要

The purpose of the epidemiological investigation was to identify the possible pathogen and food items related to the food poisoning outbreak on Septemer 30 October 1, 2000. The outbreak involved with several hundreds of students from four universities on the occasions of either welcoming new students or field training activities at the Hohuan Campsite in Pinglin Township, Taipei County. The inestigation applied the case-control mathod with a semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire contained questions on the background information , major complaints, onset time of symptoms, medication, time of recovery, time of food intake, and food items eaten. A total of 317 copies of the questionnaire were collected from students of the Business Administration Department of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST), the Life Science Department of the National Yangming University the International Trade Department of the Mingchuan University, the Spots and Recreation Club of the Mingchuan University and the Huafan University. Analysis was made primarily on the 86 copies of the questionnaire collected from student of the NTUST. The food poisoning attack rate of the NTUST students was 39.5%(34/86). Major symptoms included watery diarrhea at least twice a day and abdominal pain. No cases had bloody feces. Incubation period rangged from 7 to 68 hours, averaging 38 hours, with a standard error of 15 hours. Approximately 70% of the food poisoning cases (24/34) had been medically cared. They recovered within 1-6 days, with a median of 3 days. Results of food items analysis showed that ,emon tea, which the NTUST students had at the the barbecue at noon of October 1, was significantly associated with the food poisonoing outbreak(odds ratio: 5.19, 95%
Confidence limits: 1.02-50.33) According to the symptoms, incubation periods, and finding from environmental inspections, it was speculated that the present incident was most likely associated with the lemon tea contaminated by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli