Norovirus blamed for Olive Garden sickness

The Marion County Health Department has succeeded in finding the actual cause behind the mysterious Indiana illness that sickened more than 370 people who ate at an Olive Garden restaurant last week.

The health officials determined that the mass food related illness was caused by a contagious stomach virus called ‘norovirus’, a gastrointestinal illness that causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

To reach at a conclusion, the health officials performed a laboratory test of stool samples from three Olive Garden workers and one customer and found them positive for norovirus, Marion County Health Department spokesman John Althardt said.

Telling about the pathogen that affected hundreds of people and forced Olive Garden officials on Friday (December 15) to shut down the restaurant located at 6130 E. 82nd St., Althardt said, “A norovirus is a highly contagious, hard to eliminate virus that is associated with restaurants, cruise ships and other settings where people are consuming food that has been prepared or handled by others.”

Health officials had instructed the Olive Garden, a unit of Darden Restaurants Inc., to thoroughly clean every nook and corner of the restaurant with a solution of one part bleach to 10 parts water to ensure the place is free of virus.

After being closed for the cleaning the restaurant got the clean chit yesterday from the health department to begin its services. According to restaurant manger, Bob Newblom, the Olive Garden restaurant in Castleton is set to reopen Tuesday at 4:00 p.m.

Olive Garden spokesman Steve Coe said, “We're going to be taking a very careful and thoughtful approach as we look to reopen.”

Satisfied with the measures Olive Garden took to eradicate the existence of the virus, the health officials have also been suggesting the restaurant's management to strictly implement the policies regarding employee hand-washing and making sure sick employees are excluded from working to avoid future problems.

"We will be monitoring this particular restaurant for the foreseeable future to make sure they follow our recommendations," Althardt said.

He said the health officials are still investigating to figure out the exact source of the illnesses and how the virus traveled into the restaurant.

The chain of Italian restaurants has become at least the third U.S. restaurant chain this month, after Taco Bell and Taco John's, blamed for an E. Coli outbreak, to be linked to widespread customer illness.

It is only last week, Federal health officials had declared that the outbreak of E.coli at Taco Bell restaurants in the U.S. Northeast that sickened 71 people was over. Another E.coli outbreak at Taco John's restaurants in Iowa and Minnesota sickened 54 customers.

The Olive Garden illness sent the parent company Darden’s shares down 2.2 percent on Friday, though the stock was up 0.4% at $40.60 on Monday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.