Chipotle shares dive 7% on new E. coli details

The company’s shares did fall by 2.7 percent to $550.25 in trading Friday afternoon. This will be the first time when the entity will witness this much decline.

Two of the newly reported illnesses started in October, and five started in November, suggesting the outbreak was not as short lived as previously thought.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported related E. coli O26 illness in three new states.

Chipotle said this week that an outbreak of E. coli linked to its restaurants sent sales plummeting by as much as 22 percent in recent weeks and that it could no longer reasonably estimate sales for next year.

For the past few months, Chipotle has been under the radar, with federal authorities investigating a pathogenic E. coli strain, which has now affected 52 people across nine states, with 47 of these individuals saying they ate at Chipotle right before they fell sick. Symptoms can be severe and include abdominal pain, diarrhea, and a host of other complications.

Figures have yet to show how the E. Coli crisis has affected Chipotle with the bad publicity involved, but Chipotle plans to provide financial updates for a presentation to analysts and investors on Tuesday, according to the New York Daily News.

Most the illnesses have been in OR and Washington, where cases were initially reported at the end of October.

The government investigators added Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania to a list of states that already included California, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Washington. It said it will also enhance employee training for food safety and handling.

The investigation has not identified what specific food is linked to illness.

An estimated 48 million Americans get sick each year from foodborne diseases.

The company is now scrambling to tighten up its procedures for guaranteeing the safety of its food as investigators continue to dig into what caused the outbreak. Of these, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die, according to the CDC.

Chipotle said Friday it tested ingredients before, but that it is moving to testing smaller batches and a larger number of samples.

The start of the outbreak has been reported in October.