St. Louis County Department of Public Health reveals more information about recent E. coli outbreak tied to Rockwood school events
ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - At a presentation Monday, the St. Louis County Health Department revealed more about a recent E. coli outbreak tied to Rockwood school events.
Austin Carnaghi tells First Alert 4, “The cramping was terrible, like I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stay off the restroom for more than 5-10 minutes.”
Austin Caranaghi is one of dozens affected by an E. Coli outbreak in St. Louis County.
The St. Louis County Department of Public Health says that on November 13, they learned of the first three cases -which were connected to Rockwood Summit High School.
Amanda Brzozowski is the Senior Epidemiologist at the St. Louis County Department of Public Health.
Brzozowski says, “We came in that morning. We opened up our morning notifications, and we had three cases of E. coli. It’s not typical. We also noticed that they all live near each other.”
Less than two weeks later, the department reports 353 people responded to a survey sent out to those possibly affected. 108 people met the case definition and attended one of four local events.
Of those, 29 were lab-confirmed positives for E. coli.
Health officials tell First Alert 4 that over a hundred e. Coli cases have been found to be connected to events hosted or catered through Andre’s Banquet and Catering.
According to Brzozowski, “We had 108 cases who were sick and 102 of them reported eating the lettuce. Um, there are always cases obviously who don’t, who didn’t eat the thing that, you know, that that happens, but it’s, it’s still looking overwhelmingly like it’s the lettuce, but we still don’t know where that happened.”
According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, an unopened package of lettuce collected from Andre’s Banquet and Catering tested negative for E. Coli.
“The lettuce tested negative that the state had collected, but that was a closed box. It wasn’t the same box that these people ate. So. it could still have been from the farm or anywhere during the processing or after that at the facility,” says Brzozowski.
Andre’s released this statement to First Alert 4:
“John Armengol Jr. is a local business owner who has been in the restaurant industry for over 40 years and during that time, has catered more than 55,000 events and served more than 5.5 million meals. Food safety has always been his top priority. It is reckless and irresponsible to malign him in the court of public opinion when the lettuce he served tested negative for E. coli after being tested by the Missouri State Public Health Laboratory, which is dedicated to delivering quality public health laboratory services. John will continue to cooperate with the state and local health departments as they work to determine the source of E. coli that has caused illnesses in the region.”
The health department is now waiting on whole genome sequencing results from the state public health lab to see if the different infections match up.
They will continue to monitor additional cases and work with neighboring areas as well.
The department is also working to help people who reported working in high-risk environments who developed symptoms submit clearance specimens so they are able to return to work.
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