Reporting Food Borne Illness

The Centers for Disease Control estimates there are 76 million case of food borne illness in the United States annually. With over 2,500 eating establishments in the City of Albuquerque, food borne illness is bound to occur on occasion. The goal of the Consumer Health Protection Division is to minimize that occurrence.

Report food borne illness suspected from a dining establishment by calling (505) 768-2632 or 768-2704 . After 5 pm Monday to Sunday, please call our hotline at 768-2665. Your calls are appreciated. Your call could save the life of a child, an elderly person or persons with weakened immune systems. To help ensure safe food, you will be asked questions regarding your illness. The more accurate the information you provide, the more likely we can determine the true cause of your illness and enforce corrective action. Before you call, please consider the following.

Did your call result from your dining experience or is this a general complaint?
If you are ill, please let us know early in your call. If the complaint is regarding food safety or sanitation, (dirty utensils, off-temperature food, etc.) but an illness did not result, we still want to know about it, but the procedure for handling the complaint will be different. If the product about which you are complaining was manufactured and packaged outside the State of New Mexico and you opened it, the complaint should be reported to the Food and Drug Administration or by calling (303) 236-3044. If the problem involves meat or poultry, call the United States Department of Agriculture. The hotline number is 1-800-535-4555. If you received poor service or were over charged at an establishment, please notify the manager. Elevated blood pressure is not considered a food-related illness.

Where did you eat?
There are several chain restaurants with multiple locations in Albuquerque. To target the appropriate one, please have as complete an address as possible.

What did you eat?
It is important to know all beverages and drinks consumed by the ill person at the establishment in question. Often the source of illness is not the one that the person initially suspected.

When did you eat?
Call us as soon as you suspect a food borne illness. The sooner you call, the sooner we can take corrective action.

Who was with you?
It helps us to know who your dining companions were and what they ate, whether they became ill or not. This information may help us determine the exact source of your illness. If you are reluctant to provide us with their names and phone numbers, please urge them to call us if they also became ill.

How can we contact you in the future?
Often, the person who takes your call is not the one who determines how the investigation will be handled. Follow-up calls are routinely conducted to gather more specific information. Your name, address, and phone number will all be kept strictly confidential.

Can you provide details about your illness?
The time you became ill, the duration of your illness, and your symptoms are important. If you are ill enough to see a doctor, please do so, and provide us with the doctor's name and phone number. Doctors can order testing on stool or vomitus specimens that can provide information as to the cause of your illness. This can be critical to our investigation, linking source to agent.

What did you eat 72 hours prior to your illness?
This is a very important component of our investigation. Many times, people will suspect the last meal they ate as the one that made them ill. This may not be the case. Most bacterial and many viral agents of food borne illness can take between one to three days to develop or "incubate." If you don't remember every detail, please call us any way and provide us with as much information as you can remember. This takes some time to do, so a follow-up call may be necessary to complete this information.

Do you have any leftovers?
As part of our investigation we will collect food samples from the restaurant. It will be helpful if samples can be obtained from the same batch of food as the one you consumed. If you took home a doggie bag, don't freeze it, but keep it refrigerated and we may submit it to the New Mexico State Department of Health, Scientific Laboratory Division for analysis.

Is there any pertinent information you can provide us?
Was there anything unusual about your meal? Was the food cold when it should have been hot? Did it have an unexpected taste? Has there been illness in your family recently? Do you have children who attend day care? Have you traveled outside the United States recently? Have you been sampling and drinking water from non-municipal systems or swimming in non-chlorinated waters? Details such as these may seem unrelated, but can be critical to pinpointing the true source of your illness.