By Matt Fredmonsky
Record-Courier staff writer
A total of 432 people now believe their recent bouts with nauseu, vomiting and diarrhea are linked to their patronage of the Chipotle Mexican Grill at 429 E. Main St. in Kent.
Health officials released the total number of reported cases Monday and identified a suspected cause of the illness, which initially sent dozens of the restaurant's customers in search of medical treatment after eating there last week.
Early reports showed about 40 people, primarily Kent State University students, had fallen ill after visiting the eatery. The number skyrocketed to 180 Saturday after news reports urged people with similar symptoms who may have eaten at the restaurant to contact health officials.
Kent Health Commissioner John Ferlito said the symptoms experienced by the people who became sick resemble those of the norovirus or Norwalk Virus.
"It's following the same modus operandi," Ferlito said. "Which seems to be classic norovirus."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noroviruses are a group of related, single-stranded RNA non-enveloped viruses that cause acute gastroenteritis in humans. The infection usually presents as acute-onset vomiting, watery non-bloody diarrhea with abdominal cramps and nausea. Low-grade fever also occasionally occurs, and the illness typically presents within 24 to 36 hours of infection.
Transmission of the illness can occur through food, person-to-person contact and through contact with contaminated environmental surfaces, according to the CDC.
Ferlito, however, suspects the viral gastroenteritis passed to the customers through the restaurant's food.
"It got into the food and when people ingested the food. That's how they got it," he said.
Chris Arnold, spokesman for Chipotle's corporate office in Colorado, disagrees.
"We believed this might be a norovirus, which is spread very easily from person to person, rather than something connected to our food or food supply," Arnold said in a statement. "We took immediate preventative measures when we voluntarily closed our restaurant on Friday for a complete sanitization. We reopened on Saturday with the full support of the Kent health department, after inspections Friday morning when this was originally brought to our attention, and again Saturday morning before we reopened. Neither inspection found any violations."
No national surveillance system exists for acute gastroenteritis outbreaks, including those caused by norovirus, unless foodborne transmission is suspected. Ohio experienced 22 norovirus cases from October to December 2005 and another 69 cases during the same three-month period in 2006, according to the CDC.
The city, state and county health departments are cooperating to test food samples from the restaurant and stool samples from people who became sick. No cases have been reported of people becaming sick after eating at the restaurant since it re-opened Saturday after a voluntary shutdown occurred on Friday so employees could discard any remaining food stock and sanitize the entire eatery.
Ferlito said the Denver-based restaurant chain cooperated fully during the outbreak and city inspectors found no food-service violations during inspections conducted before and during the incident.
"Hopefully we can capture the virus, but we might not," Ferlito said. "Chipotle cooperated well, but sometimes things happen."
Record-Courier reporter Diane Smith contributed to this story.