Food & Water - FAQs:

A food worker with the flu does NOT present any risk to the safety of food because you can't get the flu from eating food. However, one of the best ways to reduce the spread of influenza is to keep sick people away from well people. Workers who have symptoms of the flu, such as fever, runny or stuffy nose, coughing, sneezing, sore throat, and muscle aches, should stay home and not come to work until at least 24 hours after their fever has resolved.

• CDC recommends that employees with flu-like illness remain at home until at least 24 hours after they are free of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications. (For this purpose, a fever is considered 100° F or greater)
   
• Expect sick employees to be out for about three to five days, in most cases, even if antiviral medications are used.
   
• CDC recommends that employers do not require a doctor’s note for workers who are ill with flu-like illness to validate their illness or to return to work, as doctor’s offices and medical facilities may be extremely busy and may not be able to provide such documentation in a timely way. 

Food workers who are well, but who have an ill family member at home with influenza, can go to work as usual. However, these employees should monitor their health every day, and notify their supervisor and stay home if they become ill.

Despite your best efforts, it may not be possible to exclude everyone who is ill with influenza from the workplace. Some people may be infectious before they show any symptoms. Also, some people with influenza do not have a fever. 

Influenza viruses are spread through inhalation or through the touching of contaminated surfaces, then touching of the mouth, nose, or eyes.  Transmission of the virus in a food-service venue could occur through the normal routes of infection that could happen in any public or private setting—inhalation of the virus expelled by infected individuals when coughing or sneezing or by touching any surface contaminated with the virus and then touching the mouth, nose, or eyes.

Food-service employees or others who handle food who are well, but who have a family member at home who is ill with the flu, can go to work as usual. These employees should monitor their health every day, and take everyday precautions, including washing their hands often with soap and water, especially after they cough or sneeze.  If they become ill, they should notify their supervisor and stay home.

No, the use of N95 respirators or facemasks is not recommended for food workers. The current CDC infection control guidelines only recommend the use of N95 respirators or facemasks for employees in healthcare occupations with high risk of exposure. 

Current Good Manufacturing Practice Requirements:
Long-standing federal regulations require that any person who is shown to have, or appears to have, an illness by which there is a reasonable possibility of food, food-contact surfaces, or food-packaging materials becoming contaminated must be excluded from any operations that may be expected to result in such contamination until the health condition is corrected.  Plant management must take all reasonable measures and precautions to ensure this.

The regulations also require that food facility managers instruct personnel to report illnesses to their supervisors.

These regulations are contained in the Current Good Manufacturing Practice in Manufacturing, Packing, or Holding Human Food, in Part 110.10 of Title 21 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations:   http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_08/21cfr110_08.html.

For Food Retailers, Restaurants and Food Service Operations:
The FDA Food Code provides model regulations for reducing risk factors known to cause foodborne illness at retail food facilities, restaurants and other food-service operations.

Most state and local authorities have adopted Food Code provisions as regulatory requirements.  In addition to several other restrictions applicable to food employees experiencing certain symptoms of illness, the Food Code stipulates that employees experiencing persistent sneezing, coughing or a runny nose that causes discharges from the eyes, nose or mouth may not work with exposed food, clean equipment, utensils, linens, or unwrapped single-service or single-use articles.

No. Swine flu has not been shown to be transmissible to people through eating properly handled and prepared pork (pig meat) or other products derived from pigs.

For more information about the proper handling and preparation of pork, visit the USDA website fact sheet Fresh Pork from Farm to Table.