Avoid serving high-risk food to vulnerable people in the United States

Giving high-risk food to vulnerable people in medical settings should be avoided, according to a review of healthcare-associated foodborne outbreaks that included the United States. Researchers said diets should be nutritious and tasty without using high-risk foods but they acknowledged limited budgets of healthcare operations may impact the quality of food served. As the proportion of elderly people is projected to increase, the share of the population as patients in healthcare facilities (HCF) is likely to rise and so is the risk associated with healthcare-associated foodborne outbreaks (HA-FBO). Researchers searched for HA-FBOs between 2001 and 2018 from 37 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and from 2012 to 2018 in the German surveillance system as well as looking at 2010 to 2018 data from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). They found 57 HA-FBOs from 16 OECD countries. Eleven each in the United States and Germany and nine in the ...