Food poisoning and infectious diseases
Environmental Health Officers have responsibility for investigating cases of food poisoning and certain notifiable diseases e.g. Cholera and Malaria.
If you have recently returned from abroad and are unwell or if you have symptoms indicative of food poisoning e.g. severe diarrhoea and/or vomiting you should visit your GP. Specimens will be taken and sent for laboratory analysis where a causative organism may be identified.
In confirmed cases, or if food poisoning is suspected, an Officer will contact you, either in person or by telephone and ask a range of questions regarding you and your household. Details of any history of foods you have eaten and places visited will be taken in the hope of finding out where the organism causing the illness may have come from.
This investigation takes place to reduce the potential for spread of the illness, to establish whether a case is part of a larger outbreak and possibly to identify a premise where standards of food hygiene are not being maintained.
Environmental Health Services has a large number of information sheets relating to infectious diseases which are available upon request. If you require further information regarding diseases which are currently notifiable or the organisms which most frequently cause food poisoning, please contact this office (telephone 01322 343374 or email customer.services@dartford.gov.uk )
