Coli Outbreak Expanded To 6 States Including NY, California

Matthew Weiss, who runs a team at the CDC that investigates bacterial outbreaks in food and water, said OR and Washington identified the outbreak early on, before the CDC completed DNA analysis. Investigators have yet to determine the specific ingredient linked to the illness at the current moment. Arnold said, “Although the cases are newly reported, the exposures came between October 13 and November 6”. The good part is that no case of death has been reported till now, causing hospitalization of about 16 people after eating poisonous E. coli infected food.

So far, the STEC O26 strains from 10 sick people in Washington (nine cases) and Minnesota (one case) were found to be highly related genetically to one another.

As a response to all reported E. coli cases, Chipotle made moves to contain and remove the E. coli threat from all affected restaurants, the release says.

The big E. Coli scare over at Chipotle has now made its way to The Buckeye State after representatives for the popular Mexican food restaurant assured the public their was nothing to worry about. Five of them are known to have eaten Chipotle before becoming ill, including two in Turlock, Calif., and one each in Akron, OH; Amherst, New York; and Burnsville, Minn.

The first few cases of Chipotle outbreak was identified in Seattle, Washington and Portland, OR outlets and on October 31 the firm shut down all the 43 outlets in the areas. The resident has since recovered from the illness without the need for hospitalization. However another round of lab tests connects additional illnesses in California, New York, OH and Minnesota with the outbreak, despite having excluded the latter state from the list as recent as last week, the CDC reports.

The company said it is not aware of any employees who have become ill.

-Nov. 11: Chipotle reopens stores in Washington and OR that it voluntarily closed after after giving them a deep cleaning and ordering a fresh supply of ingredients.

“We’re looking into it”, Amato said. “Chipotle has taken important steps to make certain that our food is as safe as it can be”, said the company.