Coli Woes Continue As CDC Investigates Another Potential Outbreak

The FDA said it is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local officials.

US health officials are investigating Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants for a possible connection to an outbreak of a different strain of E. coli. As per the CDC, all five started witnessing symptoms between November 18 and 26 and they all had meals within a week of becoming ill.

Separately, a group of at least 80 students at Boston College fell ill after eating at a Chipotle in what is believed to be the third group of food poisonings. The five individuals who have been infected said they’d eaten at a Chipotle during the week prior to falling ill.

Chipotle hired an outside company to help it revamp its sanitation practices after the earlier outbreak, the cause of which was never determined.

Following the outbreak, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. assured customers that it would tighten its food safety standards. The safety program will involve DNA testing of all fresh produce and end-of-shelf-life testing to ensure that ingredients are safe to consume. An outbreak of norovirus in Boston that sickened around 140 people appeared to finally stop spreading.

“I will say, though, that we can assure you today that there is no E. coli in Chipotle”, founder and co-CEO Steve Ells told CNBC last week. For now, no single food item has been found to be associated with the new outbreak that has nothing to do with previous cases.

The new cases prompted a downgrade of Chipotle shares to neutral from overweight at J.P. Morgan on Tuesday.

“We have indicated before that we expected that we may see additional cases stemming from this, and C.D.C.is now reporting some additional cases”, Chipotle said in a statement.

The findings came after both of the company’s chief executives stated that no E. coli cases were contracted by customers eating at stores after early November.

Arnold said that the aim is to “near zero” food safety risk to consumers. “And I think that’s part of the reason why their new food safety protocol that they will be implementing and have started to implement kind of goes above and beyond anything that you might expect”.

The recent strain differs from the previously reported outbreak strain that affected 53 people from nine states, including Washington (n = 27), OR (n = 13), California (n = 3), OH (n = 3), Minnesota (n = 2), Pennsylvania (n = 2), IL (n = 1), Maryland (n = 1) and NY (n = 1).