Investigation of the Outbreak of Food- and Water-borne Diseases in Khansar, Isfahan in 2018

Background Aims of the Study: Food-borne diseases which are among the most important public health issues are responsible for a significant number of diseases and deaths every year. The present study aimed to investigate the outbreak of food- and water-borne diseases in Khansar, Isfahan, in 2017. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional utilized retrospective descriptive epidemiology to investigate the outbreak of water and food-borne diseases in the Vist region of Khansar in 2017. To investigate the outbreak, the pattern of epidemiological review and reporting was used. Data were analyzed in Excel and SPSS software (version 22). Results: The current study was conducted on 291 patients. Regarding gender, the male to female ratio was 1. In terms of age, the age groups of 15-5 years (24.4%) and 25-40 years (23.4%) had the highest frequency of disease, respectively. With respect to occupation, the highest frequency of the disease was related to housewives (30.2%) and students (28.2%), respectively. The most common symptoms were diarrhea associated with vomiting and vomiting with cramps. Laboratory results were negative for microbial contamination and parasites but positive for the virus. After sending three other samples to the laboratory, the type of virus was identified as norovirus. Conclusion: Water was most likely responsible for the transmission of this disease due to the following reasons: the consistency of epidemiological studies, propagated epidemiologic curve, uniformity of exposure, and susceptibility of all people to this disease, as well as the recognition of norovirus as the causative agent in laboratory tests.