Investigating a foodborne illness outbreak at a private girls’ school in Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, 2015

Investigating a foodborne illness outbreak at a private girls’ school in Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, 2015

Tsitsi Juru^1,&, Nsiande Lema², Daniel Chirundu³, Rayyan Muhammad Garba⁴, Joseph Asamoah rimpong⁵

 

¹Zimbabwe Field Epidemiology Training Program, Harare, Zimbabwe, ²Tanzania Field Epidemiology training program, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, ³Kadoma City Health Department, Kadoma, Zimbabwe, ⁴Department of Community Medicine, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Nigeria, ⁵African Field Epidemiology Network, Accra, Ghana

 

 

^&Corresponding author
Tsitsi Juru, Zimbabwe Field Epidemiology Training Program, Harare, Zimbabwe

 

 

 

 

General instructions: ideally, 1 to 2 instructors facilitate the case study for 10 to 20 students in a classroom or conference room. The instructor should direct participants to read a paragraph out loud, going around the room to give each participant a chance to read. When the participant reads a question, the instructor directs all participants to perform calculations, construct graphs, or engage in discussions. The instructor may split the class to play different roles or take different sides in answering a question. As a result, participants learn from each other, not just from the instructors.

 

Audience: postgraduate students in public healthand others who may be interested.

 

Prerequisite: lectures on outbreak investigation, study design and measures of association and impact.

 

Materials needed: laptop with Microsoft Excel or graph paper, flipchart or white board with markers, scientific calculator.

 

Level of training: advanced-outbreak investigation.

 

Time required: approximately 3 hours.

 

Language: english.

 

 

• Download the case study student guide;
• Request the case study facilitator guide.

 

 

The authors declare no competing interests.

 

 

This case study is based on an unpublished investigation conducted in 2015-16 by Eliot Chikati, a graduate of the Zimbabwe Field Epidemiology Training Program. We acknowledge the African Field Epidemiology Network and Emory University for organizing a case study development workshop through which this output was developed. We also wish to thank the Zimbabwe Field Epidemiology Program for allowing us to use their data for this case study and the Zimbabwe program Director Professor Mufuta Tshimanga for nominating and supporting the training of the two Zimbabwean participants who authored this case study. We acknowledge TuyaNakale, Emmanuel Hikufe, Wilson Rubanzana, Mark Obonyo, Lazarus, Alice Manjate, Senesia Sitao, Hussein Muhammed, Joseph Ntaganira, Junaidu, Yusuf, Mikayla Farr, Desta Hiko, Herbert Brian Kazoora, MaleyMcleod, Yusuf Oyindamola, Junaid Kabir, Casey Daniel, Sorie Dumbuya, Evelyn Kamgang, Calbeth Alaribe, Ghada Farhat, and Richard Dicker for critiquing the initial write-up during the Case Study Development Course held at Emory University in May 2017.

 

 

1. WHO. Foodborne disease outbreaks: guidelines for investigation and control. 2008. Accessed 2 Jun 2017.


2. CDC. Principles of Epidemiology: Home|Self-Study Course SS1978|CDC. 2008. Accessed 2 Jun 2017


3. Chikati Eliot, Simukai Tirivanhu Zizhou, Donewell Bangure et al. Salmonellosis at a Private Girls High School in Marondera District of Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe, 2015: Retrospective Cohort study. Unpublished.


4. Vander Weele TJ. Confounding and effect modification: distribution and measure. Epidemiol Methods. 2012;1(1):55-82. PubMed | Google Scholar


5. Hosmer DW, Lemeshow S. Model-Building Strategies and Methods for Logistic Regression, in: Applied Logistic Regression. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2000; 91-142.