Abstract
A food borne illness was reported in Ga-East district of Greater Accra Region among school children in May, 2007 after eating food provided at school. The objective of the investigation was to determine the source, mode of contamination and the causative agent. A case-control study was conducted, cases were schoolchildren with abdominal symptoms and controls were children of the same sex and class without any symptom during the same period. The school children were selected by systematic sampling. Food handlers and the children were interviewed by a structured questionnaire. Food handlers were physically examined and their stools and blood examined. The kitchen for food preparation was inspected. Risks of food borne infection from the foods eaten were determined using attack rates. The minimum, peak and maximum incubation periods were 2, 11 and 61 hours respectively. The source was rice and groundnut soup (with the highest attack rate difference). Stool and blood samples of food handlers were not infective. Storage facility for food items was poor. No food samples were available for organism isolation. A protocol to prevent such outbreaks was nonexistent. The short incubation period and symptoms presented suggest an infective origin. The storage of the meat may potentially have been the point of contamination. The study showed that the schoolchildren ate contaminated food although the investigation could not determine the causative agent. Protocols to prevent such outbreaks need to be developed for the schools.
Highlights
The Government of Ghana instituted the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) in 2005 to provide onesquare-meal a day for pupils in basic public schools in most deprived areas of the country.[1,2,3] GSFP is an initiative by Ghana to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on hunger, poverty and primary education.[4]On 29th of May, 2007 it was reported in the newspapers that a number of school children were reporting at various health facilities at Madina in the Ga-East district with diarrheoa and vomiting.[5,6] It was reported that it occurred after they had taken food prepared for them under the school feeding programme the previous day
Characterization of disease outbreak A total of 212 school children comprising 106 cases and 106 controls were administered questionnaires, as well as 7 food handlers
The source of the contamination and the causative agent could not be identified in this study, though the meat used for preparing the food was suspected to be the source because of the state of the storage of the meat
Summary
On 29th of May, 2007 it was reported in the newspapers that a number of school children were reporting at various health facilities at Madina in the Ga-East district with diarrheoa and vomiting.[5,6] It was reported that it occurred after they had taken food prepared for them under the school feeding programme the previous day. Children from three schools were affected namely Seventh Day Adventist Primary, Queen of Peace and the Madina Estates Schools. They had all eaten food prepared by the same caterer. This caterer has been preparing food for the children since the school-feeding program started in these schools for about six months
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