E. coli update: cases affect 100+ in school community

Over one hundred cases of E. coli O157 have infected people across the St. Louis area, including 107 Summit students and community members as the result of two events linked to the school.
The outbreak has largely been connected with Andre’s Banquets and Catering business, which hosted an end-of-season band banquet on Nov. 7 and catered the school’s Veterans Day luncheon on Nov. 8. The St. Louis County Department of Health is also investigating a funeral and a banquet at Oakville High School that were also catered by Andre’s.
Department of Health Senior Epidemiologist Dr. Amanda Brzozowski said that the number of cases vary depending on the method of confirmation: while many cases were reported via surveys, multiple were also confirmed through lab tests at
hospitals. Out of those tests, most were confirmed at the Missouri State Public Health Laboratory through whole genome sequence testing if possible.
“Just associated with the four events, we have 115 total cases, of which 31 are lab confirmed and 25 of the 31 are genetic
matches, so the other people that are included in the 115 that aren’t confirmed are people, for example, who filled out our survey and
they reported they meet our case definition. Our case definition in this case would be they reported at least one of our three key symptoms which are abdominal cramping, watery diarrhea and bloody diarrhea, so at least one of those and an [epidemiological] linkage to show they were in the same place at the same time as a confirmed case,” Brzozowski said.

When the outbreak began, many claimed that it was linked to salad served at Andre’s; the catering chain’s owner, John Armengol Jr., denied any fault. He said that preemptively blaming his business was careless on Rockwood’s behalf.
“We order everything through [Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point] and all of our food is [United States Department of Agriculture] certified. Andre’s being culpable of this is virtually and literally impossible,” Armengol said. “When Rockwood Summit put my name out there along with the Health Department, we’ve had multiple cancellations. It was reckless without any proof, defamatory. And we will defend ourselves fully that we are 100% innocent in this whole situation. Anybody who defamed us will be dealt with individually.”
The DPH began to investigate the chain, and on Nov. 22, it was reported the lettuce at the chain tested negative for E. coli. However, only one unopened box of lettuce was tested. Despite the test, Brzozowski said that Andre’s is most likely the culprit because of the high attack, or infection, rates among its patrons, which are much higher than any other establishments in the area.
“There’s no common factor among people who attended the four events at all except for eating at an event catered by or at Andre’s. [The outbreak] is clearly associated with one of those events because we have attack rates of 25, 30 percent, and the other places have attack rates of much lower than one percent. The overwhelming signal of what [food history shows] is that the implicated food is salad. There are only a couple foods that were served at all four events– salad, rolls and butter, and roast beef– and none of those other things are even close to significant at showing that they were the culprit, so it’s clearly the salad,”
Brzozowski said.
After the Department of Health confirmed that Andre’s was the source of the outbreak, Armengol declined a request to
comment. According to reports from St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 107 of these cases are linked to Summit events. Parent Michelle Dubrouillet’s son was one who suffered from an infection, which she said resulted in mounting stress.
“I was just concerned that so many kids were getting sick and my own kid as well. He has never been this sick before. I’ve had to miss work. We’ve had to contact the pediatrician twice, and ultimately had to go to the E.R.” Dubrouillet said.

At least nine community members were hospitalized and three developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a disease that
develops when blockages develop in the kidneys due the Shiga toxin that the bacteria releases. As complications continue to grow, lawsuits continue to be filed against Andre’s as well. At
least nine suits have been filed against the caterer. In addition to Andre’s, multiple also list Taylor Farms as a co-defendant after
Lange Law Firm and Simon Law Firm filed several amended lawsuits on Dec. 4, citing the farm as Andre’s produce supplier.
Taylor Farms, a California based company, was also tied to the onions that caused a recent outbreak of E. coli O157 at multiple
McDonald’s restaurants. Outside of the lawyer’s statements, no link between Taylor Farms and the St. Louis outbreak has been
confirmed as of Dec. 9. The DPH did confirm, though, that the cases matched the genetic sequencing of E. coli cases in six other states across the Midwest. Brzozowski said that health
officials were able to make that connection from the data they had collected throughout their investigation.
“[The federal investigation] is for the genetic fingerprint that our people match. Whenever the whole genome sequencing is done, it’s uploaded to a national database and the national database has clinical samples from people, but it also has things like animal samples and samples from farms and manufacturing facilities in any place like that and so they always compare any holding of sequencing results to the entire countries sequencing results that’s how with the McDonald’s onions or the carrots that are nationwide that’s how they’re able to link all of those cases who are all across the country in different states,” Brzozowski said.