Checking employees in food production, catering, hairdressing, beauty salons and accommodation for carriage of contagious disease is known as food handler (portör) screening. Two questions come up most often in the field. Which document is mandatory and how often the screening is repeated. This article summarises what the legislation says and what the field practice is, separately.
What does the legislation say?
Article 126 of Public Health Law No. 1593, as amended in 2011, requires employees at these workplaces to receive hygiene training. The same article provides that people documented as having a contagious disease, or with a visible open wound or skin disease, cannot work until a report documents their recovery.
The Food Hygiene Regulation also bars people carrying a food-borne disease, or with an infected wound or diarrhoea, from work involving contact with food. Employees must report these symptoms to the food business operator.
Hygiene training certificate
The Regulation on Hygiene Training requires a hygiene training certificate for employees at food production and sales sites, drinking and mineral water producers, spas, hammams, saunas, barbers, hairdressers, tattoo, massage and beauty salons, and accommodation such as hotels, motels and guesthouses. People without a certificate cannot be employed at these workplaces, and the same rule applies to owners who work there.
- The training lasts at least eight hours.
- It is given by lifelong learning institutions under the Ministry of National Education or by employers who meet the regulation's conditions.
- The certificate remains valid for as long as the person provides the service.
Which tests does food handler screening include?
Established practice consists of stool culture, stool microscopy, throat and nasal culture and a chest X-ray. This set is not listed in the legislation, and the occupational physician chooses according to the nature of the work. The medical tests regulation allows samples such as stool and throat or nasal swabs to be taken in a mobile unit and at a fixed centre.
Culture results take 3-5 business days in the laboratory. An employee found to have a contagious disease is kept away from work involving contact with food until a report documents recovery.
Public entertainment venues
The regulation on workplace opening and operating licences requires employees of public rest and entertainment venues to obtain a report from an official health institution showing they have no contagious disease before starting work, renewed every six months. It is one of the few places in the legislation where a frequency is written out explicitly.
Checklist for employers
- Filing employees' hygiene training certificates
- Setting the scope and frequency of screening with the occupational physician based on the risk assessment
- Temporarily moving an employee who reports symptoms away from food contact work
- Keeping results on record for each employee