Foodborne Listeriosis Acquired in Hospitals

Listeriosis is characterized by bacteremia or meningitis. We searched for listeriosis case series and outbreak investigations published in English by 2013, and assessed the strength of evidence for foodborne acquisition among patients who ate hospital food. We identified 30 reports from 13 countries. Among the case series, the median proportion of cases considered to be hospital-acquired was 25% (range, 9%-67%). The median number of outbreak-related illnesses considered to be hospital-acquired was 4.0 (range, 2-16). All patients were immunosuppressed in 18 of 24 (75%) reports with available data. Eight outbreak reports with strong evidence for foodborne acquisition in a hospital implicated sandwiches (3 reports), butter, precut celery, Camembert cheese, sausage, and tuna salad (1 report each). Foodborne acquisition of listeriosis among hospitalized patients is well documented internationally. The number of listeriosis cases could be reduced substantially by establishing hospital policies for safe food preparation for immunocompromised patients and by not serving them higher-risk foods.