Investigation of a Staphylococcal Food Poisoning Outbreak Among School Children / 예방의학회지

ABSTRACT

There was an outbreak of food poisoning on the 17 October, 1970 among the primary school children who came from a rural area, Yeongi-gun, Choongcheongnam-do to Seoul City on an educational trip. Of the 199 children participating in the trip, 149 cases of food poisoning developed a 74.9% attack rate. The acute onset of symptoms, of abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting and headache which occurred 1-5 hours after eating their lunch suggests that the outbreak was due to staphylococcal food poisoning. The common source of food was identified as the lunch packed in a chip-box which were eastern on October 17 during the trip. Most probable kind of food of the lunch as the cause was the flavoured fish paste. The lunch were prepared at restaurant A in Seoul City. One of the personnel of the restaurant had a unhealed cut wound on the third finger tip of the left hand, from which it was considered that the food was contaminated with Staphylococcus during preparation. The chance of multiplication of staphylococcus to produce enterotoxin in the food might be existed during flavouring the food with some degree of heat, an also during about 10 hours elapsed before serving the food after preparation.