The costs of investigating outbreaks are inherent in the costs of maintaining foodborne disease surveillance systems. The societal benefits of government investigations and control of outbreaks are clear. In 2001, an investigation into Salmonella Stanley infections associated with imported peanuts allowed regulatory authorities to intervene and hold the remaining 18% of the total shipment (Outbreak Investigation Team, Australia 2002). This would have prevented a further five notified cases, and over 75 cases in the community. In Australia, Salmonella infections cost an estimated $1,387 per notified infection (Yohannes 2002). The intervention in this outbreak may have saved the community $84,953.⁹ The outbreak alert was vital for Canada and the United Kingdom to identify the source of identical outbreaks in a timely fashion and also prevent substantial illness by recalling contaminated product in those countries (Kirk et al. 2004).

In recent years, there have also been investigations into Japanese oysters contaminated with norovirus, lettuce contaminated with S. Bovismorbificans 32 served at fast-food restaurants, and multi-drug resistant S. Typhimurium 104 contaminating halva from Turkey (see OzFoodNet Working Group 2003 and Stafford et al. 2002). It is difficult to identify the resulting improvements in food safety and savings in reduced illness and mortality from these investigations, but it is important to recognise the role that they play in averting disease and societal costs. The investigation into the outbreak of S. Bovismorbificans 32 caused the implicated product to be withdrawn from sale, and major changes to procedures in the company preparing the product.

The investigation of the S. Typhimurium 104 outbreak indicated a high rate of hospitalisation with 33% (8/24) of notified cases requiring admission. In Australia, this outbreak investigation prevented an estimated 87.3% of the total consignment of halva reaching consumers (Kaldor et al. 2002). This investigation may have prevented 79 notified cases and a further 1,185 infections in the community, saving as much as $1.3 million. It is likely that all of these investigations prevented further importation or production of contaminated product, and mitigated current outbreaks and prevented potential outbreaks.

Footnotes
9. This assumes that for each notified case of salmonellosis there were 15 community cases and that non-notified cases cost 75% of notified cases, due to lesser severity of illness.

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