Outbreak Response and Prevention Branch

CDC's lead for ensuring rapid and coordinated surveillance, detection, and response to multistate outbreaks of foodborne disease

Activities

Coordinate OutbreakNet: the national network of public health officials who investigate foodborne disease outbreaks
- InFORM (Integrated Foodborne Outbreak Response Management) Meeting Details
Coordinate the FoodCORE Program: work with health departments to improve detection of and response to foodborne disease outbreaks
Provide outbreak assistance to state and local health departments and oversee EIS field investigations
Develop, evaluate, and supply outbreak investigation tools and training materials
Develop, implement, and evaluate strategies for the prevention and control of foodborne disease outbreaks

We are organized in teams: FoodCORE and Outbreak Response

In 2012, we monitored between 16 and 57 potential food poisoning clusters each week and investigated more than 200 multistate clusters. These investigations led to the identification of contaminated sources, which resulted in actions to stop the outbreaks. These actions, which kept further illnesses from happening, included the recalls of more than 300 products, such as peanut butter and peanut butter products, leafy greens, cantaloupes, sprouts, ground beef, raw scraped ground tuna, mangoes, dry dog food, and ricotta salata cheese.