A Salmonella Induced Food Poisoning Outbreak Among One Hotel Employees, 2018

On May 23, 2018, a food poisoning outbreak occurred among the employees of a hotel located in Sanxia District, New Taipei City. After an on-site epidemiological case-control investigation, 34 out of the 49 employees were identified as cases, showing an attack rate of 73.9%. Case symptoms consisted of diarrhea (94.1%), abdominal pain (88.2%), limb weakness (76.5%), and fever (58.2%). The epidemic curve of onset date from cases was a single-peak; with an average incubation period of 16.3 hours and a standard deviation of 5.6 hours. The analysis of the lunch and dinner dishes was performed using both logistic regression analysis and Fisher's exact test. The results showed that the mung bean soup was the cause of contamination (p < 0.05). Salmonella group O7 was detected as the pathogen of this outbreak from the anal swabs of 2 cases and 2 kitchen workers. After a comprehensive investigation, the results indicated the outbreak might be a food poisoning incident caused by consumed mung bean soup contaminated with Salmonella. Therefore, we recommend that relevant precautions should be taken when storing cooked foods to avoid possible contamination.