yield of medical monitoring of staff employed in institutional catering services in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

The four-year employment medicals conducted on 1734 catering staff at military restaurants under the remit of the Preventive Medicine Sub-Division [PMSD] of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Riyadh Armed Forces Hospital, were reviewed to assess the yield and justify this preventive medicine program. Various forms of medicals conducted by PMSD on catering employees in four years [September 1993-August 1997] were retrospectively analysed. A sample of 1000 consecutive stool/ rectal swabs were examined for the relative frequencies of intestinal pathogens. There were 3558 physical, 2278 chest x-ray, 7194 stool, 6884 rectal swab and 3535 "other" examinations in the period. Those infected were 546 and six of them were found totally unfit. The relative prevalence of enteric pathogens encountered were Trichuris trichuria [1.8%], Giardia lamblia [1.4%], Shigella flexneri [0.7%], Campylobacter spp [0.5%], Entamoeba histolytica [0.4%], Decrocelium detriticum [0.4%] and Shistosomia mansoni [0.1%]. Whereas the small number found totally unfit would make one think this exercise has a low yield, the fact that potential disease transmission, especially food poisoning outbreaks, can be averted justifies the importance of this preventive strategy