Chipotle is falling after it confirms norovirus is behind the recent illness outbreak (CMG)

pulse

July 20, 2017 5:24 PM

The restaurant recently closed a store in Sterling, Virginia, after several customers reported nausea, illness and other symptoms after eating at that location.

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Chipotle is down 2.40% on Thursday after health officials confirmed that Norovirus was behind the rash of sickness reported by people who ate at one if its restaurants.

The fast-casual burrito chain recently closed a store in Sterling, Virginia, after several customers reported nausea, illness and other symptoms after eating at the location. The store was reopened after two days of cleaning and sanitizing.

On Thursday, health officials confirmed that the outbreak was indeed the highly-contagious norovirus, which can be caused by an employee not washing their hands after visiting the restroom, among other things.

More than 130 cases of illness have been reported relating to the Virgina location. Some of those reports were made to iwaspoisoned.com, and many were confirmed with photos of receipts from the restaurant, according to the site's founder.

Chipotle said it has received a "small number" of reports.

Chipotle had to contend with an E. coli outbreak two years ago. The bacteria-based outbreak was spread across a wide number of company restaurants. While the recent norovirus outbreak affected a large number of people, it was localized to the single restaurant and has no risk of spreading to other Chipotle locations.

Chipotle is down 3.03% this year.

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