Gastroenteritis at an Internal Displaced Persons IDPs Camp in Mosul, Iraq, 2017 "Case Study"
Yasir Majeed, Zainab Abbas, Abdulrazzaq Mohammad, Hanan Khaleel
Corresponding author: Yasir Majeed, Ministry of Health, Public Health Directorate, Epidemiology Department, Iraq 
Received: 04 Jan 2025 - Accepted: 30 Oct 2025 - Published: 27 Feb 2026
Domain: Epidemiology
Keywords: Food poisoning, IDPs, Mosul
Funding: This work received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors.
This article is published as part of the supplement Teaching Case Studies in Field Epidemiology and Public Health for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, commissioned by Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET).
©Yasir Majeed et al. Pan African Medical Journal (ISSN: 1937-8688). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Yasir Majeed et al. Gastroenteritis at an Internal Displaced Persons IDPs Camp in Mosul, Iraq, 2017 "Case Study". Pan African Medical Journal. 2026;53(1):12. [doi: 10.11604/pamj.supp.2026.53.1.46343]
Available online at: https://www.panafrican-med-journal.com//content/series/53/1/12/full
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Gastroenteritis at an Internal Displaced Persons IDPs Camp in Mosul, Iraq, 2017 "Case Study"
Gastroenteritis at an Internal Displaced Persons IDPs Camp in Mosul, Iraq, 2017 "Case Study"
Yasir Majeed1,&, Zainab Abbas1, Abdulrazzaq Mohammad2, Hanan Khaleel3
&Corresponding author
Food poisoning is also known as foodborne illness. It occurs when someone becomes ill after eating a food or drinking a beverage that is contaminated with a harmful substance. Not all food poisoning is the same. Food poisoning can occur when food becomes contaminated with harmful substances such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and chemicals. Some of these substances can cause illness within minutes, while others may take several hours, days or even weeks to make someone sick. Therefore, it is not always the last thing consumed that causes an illness. The contaminated food may have been eaten several days before the illness began. A foodborne illness occurred in Mosul, Iraq on 24 June 2017 in Hammam Al-Aleel Camp for Mosul Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs). Objectives: to identify which type of food was more at risk to cause poisoning. Methods: retrospective cohort study was done, questionnaire designed and filled by investigator through direct interview, including demographic characteristics, food items, signs and symptoms, time of onset, then calculate attack rate ratio calculated for each food item, gender specific attack rate ratio, food sample sent to Central Public Health Laboratory for testing causative pathogens Results: Total number of cases (98), 48.0% are male, mean age ± SD 21.3 ± 14.3 years, male: female ratio 1:1.6, incubation period ranging from 8:15 to 15:45 hours with mean ± STD 7.3 hours , 78.6% of patients have abdominal pain, 87.7% have vomiting and 88.8% have diarrhea, the highest attack rate ratio reported in those who ate Chicken, Rice and those who ate bean soup. food sample testing reveals isolation of staphylococcus aureus, bacillus cereus and E-coli. Conclusion: improper cooking and storage of food due to a lack of electricity and refrigeration, as well as being left out for several hours, can easily contaminate food which will result in foodborne illnesses. All the patients were treated and discharged. No fatalities were reported.
General instructions: this case study should be used as adjunct training material for the Novice FETP trainees to reinforce the concepts taught in prior lectures. The case study is ideally taught by a facilitator in groups of about 20 participants. Participants are required to take turns reading the case study, usually a paragraph per student. The facilitator guides the discussion on possible responses to questions. The facilitator may make use of flip charts to illustrate certain points. Additional instructor´s notes for facilitation are coupled with each question in the instructor´s guide to aid facilitation.
Audience: this case study was developed for novice field epidemiology students. These participants are commonly health care workers working in the county departments of public health whose background may be medical doctors, dentist, pharmacist, medical technician, and veterinarian who work in public health-related fields. Most have a health science or biology background.
Prerequisites: before using this case study, participants should have received lectures on disease surveillance and outbreak investigation.
Materials needed: Flip charts, Markers, Computers with MS Excel, Papers and Calculator
Level of training and associated public health activity: Intermediate and Advanced FETP Residents
Time required: 2-3 hours
Language: English
- Download the case study student guide
- Request the case study facilitator guide
The authors declare no competing interests.
Great thanks to Dr. Yasir Younis Majeed for his special effort in this investigation, developing a large part from this case study and continuous support to his colleges as always. We wish to acknowledge the Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) for their support in developing and reviewing this case study. Special thanks to: Dr. Aisha Jumaan, PhD, MPH, Alden Henderson, MPH, PhD; Epidemiologist /Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Anna G. Gibson, PhD for reviewing the cases study.
Table 1: descriptive characteristics of the study sample
Table 2: illustrate the frequency of diarrhea among IDPs according to the food item eaten
Table 3: male in the IDPs who involved in the study
Table 4: female in the IDPs who involved in the study
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