Georgia Food and Feed Rapid Response Team

Georgia Food and Feed Rapid Response Team The overall mission of the Georgia Food and Feed Rapid Response Team (GA RRT) is to characterize, investigate, mitigate, and conclude food and feed emergencies as a part of a coordinated federal-state- local integrated food safety system. This project will allow Georgia to continually develop, improve, and sustain the mission and resources of the GA RRT. Since the original cooperative agreement in 2012, Georgia has built and strengthened an integrated and multiagency response team not only within the state, but state to state, and engages all appropriate federal, state, local, and tribal stakeholders. These stakeholders include representatives from both agriculture, environmental health, epidemiology, laboratories, law enforcement and many more. During the past three years, the GA RRT has been heavily involved in developing and revising best practice guidelines, standard operating procedures, and memorandums of understanding to build and strengthen the state’s capability and capacity to respond to food and feed emergencies. As a result, the state is now better prepared for a public health response to a number of scenarios where the public at risk. This includes the consequences of natural disasters, unintentional contaminations, and intentional contaminations or acts of bioterrorism. One of the major goals the GA RRT intends to build upon is the continual use of a coordinated, standardized, and integrated incident management team to respond to food and feed outbreaks and emergencies. The GA RRT plans to refine and improve this process and develop multi-state approaches to conducting post- response activities including developing after-action reports and improvement plans. The GA RRT intends to expand its resources to both neighboring RRT and non-RRT states. We will further this response capability by strengthening the regional preparedness component by continuing to actively engage and mentor the Southeastern states. The relationship developed during the original cooperative agreement will be built upon and will grow stronger. Several projects including the recently reestablished surge capacity workgroup and a future EMAC exercise will be completed to support the RRT Mission Ready Packages. Additionally, other multi-state and national initiatives including a food defense and recovery workshop will be developed and shared with RRT and non-RRT funded states. Another important goal of the GA RRT is to continue to operate within phase 3 of the original grant and to continually maintain, train, and equip the team. In collaboration with the Georgia Department of Public Health, the local and district health departments will undergo training and will be engaged appropriately during responses activities such as recall effectiveness checks. Developing a procedure and identifying information sharing restrictions will be a major deliverable in enhancing and improving this collaboration.