Boston College said Tuesday that 80 students fell ill after eating at a Chipotle this weekend, but the state Department of Consumer Protection said no incidents or complaints involving the Mexican food chain have been reported in CT. They are now being tested for E. coli and norovirus, as both cause symptoms describe by the students.
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Boston College sent out a letter to all students Monday afternoon about the illnesses and the “common denominator of all affected students having eaten at the local Chipotle restaurant”, Dunn said.
“We agree with health officials that it is likely a norovirus, which seems very consistent with the pattern here”, Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold told ABC News in a statement.
Last Friday, December 5 the Center for Disease Control and Prevention updated the list of states reporting cases of E.coli, to include Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The company has said that it is tightening its food safety procedures, and that some of its local produce suppliers might not be able to meet the new standards.
He’s been litigating foodborne illnesses since 1993, and is the man everyone’s calling regarding the Chipotle E. coli outbreak.
“Right now, we don’t have any indication that there are any issues with the Chipotle’s here”, Anderson said, though she added that the food chain is still investigating exactly what caused the students to fall ill. Norovirus can be contracted from an infected person or from contaminated food, water or surfaces.
Norovirus can persist in an environment for up to six weeks, said Benjamin Chapman, a food safety specialist at North Carolina State University.
These complaints are on top of the 50-plus who got sick from an E. coli outbreak on the west coast and in the Midwest.
Chipotle executives even said that they will not surprise in near future if there are some more negative reports appear against the company.
The company had said that it had no evidence to suggest a connection between that outbreak and the Boston incident.
But since late October, Chipotle has temporarily closed restaurants in Washington and OR because of links to an E. coli outbreak. Public health officials closed the restaurant pending the investigation. “There are no confirmed cases of E. coli connected to Chipotle in MA”.
Chipotle believes norovirus is to blame for the rash of illnesses that seemingly stem from the Cleveland Circle restaurant, but the Boston Public Health Commission says it’s too early to tell.
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To this end, the practice that was scheduled to hold Monday had been cancelled and it was hoped that numerous basketball players would be much recovered by Tuesday to practice so that they can be in the best of health for the Providence game of Wednesday night.
