Autopsy in a Suspected Case of Food Poisoning - Approach and Challenges

Food poisoning outbreaks are very common place world over. These epidemics are however preventable to some extent by safe food handling practices. The major reason for such mishaps in rural parts of our country is illiteracy and poverty among the masses. In this article, we report an outbreak of food poisoning and also describe our approach towards conducting autopsy of index case in the same suspected food poisoning epidemic. Investigating food poisoning epidemics are fraught with several challenges for the clinician, microbiologist and the pathologist in resource limited settings. Autopsy in these cases of food poisoning generally involves carrying out several ancillary investigations which demand a very high discipline during sampling at autopsy, transportation of specimens to the laboratory and also during the actual analysis. A note was also made at the end of this case report regarding an appropriate approach of a Forensic pathologist towards food poisoning deaths.