Health News:

• The summer COVID wave may be peaking, with national test positivity down compared to last week. (CIDRAP)
  
• Home delivery meals made by Metabolic Meals were linked to a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis, sickening at least 16 people in 10 states. (CDC)
  
• As the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo spreads, killing 16 so far, a WHO official says U.S. aid cuts will “definitely have an impact” on containing the virus. (CBS)
  
• 8 in 10 parents nationwide and in Florida support school vaccine requirements for measles and polio. (KFF)
• ‍Minnesota and New York both issued executive orders preserving access to COVID vaccines. (CIDRAP)‍
• Chagas, or “kissing bug,” disease may actually be endemic in the U.S. The blood-sucking insects have been found in 32 states, with human cases in 8 states. (EID)‍
• The major gastroenterology groups updated colonoscopy prep guidance for the first time in a decade. Most people can now eat the day before. (GastroEndo News)
• ‍Nearly half of the people around the world living with diabetes don’t know they have it. (CNN)

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Climate Health News:

• An invasive species of disease-carrying tick has been found in Maine, the farthest northeast it’s been found so far. (AP)

• As the world gets hotter, Americans are turning to more sugar - lots of sugary beverages and slightly more frozen desserts. (AP)
  
  

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Mental Health & Substance Use News:

• While overall positivity is down, more fentanyl is showing up in workplace random drug tests. (PR Newswire)
  
• OpenAI says they’ll add guidelines for ChatGPT to handle conversations with teens and others in mental health distress. (NY Times)

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or need help, call 988 or message the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

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Best Questions:

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We’re suddenly seeing lots of employees with Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease. Can they work? What do we need to know? 

Across all of our ZHH clients, we’re seeing an uptick in Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (HFMD). It’s a bit out of the ordinary - we are used to infants getting HFMD at daycare, but we’re seeing an increase in adults reporting the condition, as well. 

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HFMD is a viral illness that usually starts with a fever, reduced appetite, and/or sore throat. Then a day or two after the fever, painful sores appear in the mouth, and a skin rash can appear on the palms of the hands and bottom of the feet (though it can also develop on other body parts). 

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Even if an employee’s child has HFMD, they don’t need to be excluded unless they have symptoms. But if they do have symptoms of their own, they need to be excluded from work (or sent home) until their rash is completely healed and they’re at least 24 hours fever-free without fever-reducing medications like Tylenol or Advil. That can be a long time (anywhere from 7 to 10 days), so managers should be prepared to cover their shifts for at least a week. 

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The virus is passed through person-to-person contact, droplets in the air when a sick person coughs, sneezes, talks, or through contact with contaminated surfaces. If someone with HFMD worked while symptomatic, do a thorough cleaning and sanitizing, focusing on surfaces they touched. Enforce increased handwashing for a few days, and remind your team just how important it is to stay home if they feel sick. 

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If you have questions about HFMD, check out our Q&A and Action Plan, or chat with a clinical team member about it in the ZHH App. 

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Source: CDC

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What happened with FoodNet?

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The CDC is drastically scaling down FoodNet, its foodborne disease surveillance network that actively monitors foodborne illness (FBI) in ten states. Instead of tracking eight major pathogens, it will now track just two: Salmonella and Shiga-toxin producing E. coli. Reporting of Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Listeria, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia is now optional.

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There are other methods for tracking FBIs, including the National Notifiable Diseases system and the Listeria Initiative, but there’s an important difference - those are passive, relying on states to report cases. FoodNet, on the other hand, is an active monitoring system. It doesn’t wait for states to (hopefully) report up to the CDC, but works on-the-ground to survey labs, doctors, and the general population to proactively look for cases across state lines. 

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For the foodservice industry, this could translate to slower outbreak detection and response, and less clarity on whether one cluster of cases is a one-off or part of a larger multistate outbreak or trend. In practice, we expect this means we’ll look to state health departments more when we’re working a foodborne illness investigation. 

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Sources: CIDRAP, YLE, NBC

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Best Read:

Americans on both sides of the aisle may be looking for independent sources outside of government websites for accurate health information. This list of sites includes orgs with reliable, easy-to-understand info:

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5 Places to Turn for Accurate Health Information - The New York Times

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