Two new Chipotle E. coli cases linked to Shawnee location

A case of E. coli illness has been reported in Johnson County, along with one in North Dakota, both involving people who ate at the Chipotle Mexican Grill in Shawnee, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said Monday.

Those cases, in addition to three in Oklahoma linked to a Chipotle in that state, also were announced by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in an update of a much larger outbreak elsewhere that peaked in October.

The agency said the five new cases involved an E. coli strain with a rare DNA fingerprint, so they were being considered separately from the earlier outbreak, which sickened at least 53 people in nine states.

“Because it is not known if these infections are related to the larger, previously reported outbreak, these illnesses are not being included in the case count for that outbreak,” the Centers for Disease Control said.

The Centers for Disease Control said in the new cases, all five people became sick on dates ranging from Nov. 18 to Nov. 26. They all reported eating at a Chipotle in the week before their illnesses started. A spokeswoman for the Kansas Health Department said the Kansas and North Dakota cases involved people who had eaten at the Shawnee location the week of Nov. 23.

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

Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesman, said Monday in an e-mailed statement: “Since this issue began, we have completed a comprehensive reassessment of our food safety programs with an eye to finding best practices for each of the ingredients we use. We are now in the process of implementing those programs.”

Arnold added that the company thought the illnesses were connected to the larger, previously reported outbreak, and was working with the government investigations.

E. coli symptoms include severe gastric distress, and it can be fatal. No deaths have been reported from the recent outbreaks.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 4:05 PM with the headline "Two new Chipotle E. coli cases linked to Shawnee location."