At least 18 students who ate at Colonial Club went to McCosh Infirmary Wednesday night for acute gastric enteritis. Club officers voluntarily closed their kitchen Friday for a University investigation, which subsequently cleared the club of any negligence.
Based on his search, University Sanitarian Donald Robasser found no fault with Colonial staff or facilities.
"There didn't seem to be any mishandling of food, any improper procedures, any equipment that was malfunctioning, nothing that would be suspect," he said.
Individuals usually recover from the illness within 24 to 48 hours, and Robasser said he believed all cases to be gone.
Though definitive information is not yet available, University Chief Medical Officer Daniel Silverman speculated that the cause of the outbreak may be a particular bacterium or virus.
"We've sent off cultures to the state, but it's going to take another day or two to get results," he said.
"There certainly is always a potential that something would come in [to the club] contaminated," he speculated.
Robasser added that though other clubs use the same food suppliers, "We haven't seen [at McCosh] club members from other clubs who had not eaten at Colonial."
The outbreak was first noticed when Silverman arrived at work Thursday morning.
He learned that overnight, University Health Services had admitted 10 students — a number so much higher than usual that at one point McCosh had no vacant beds — and contingency plans were made to divert any additional students to UMCP.
University health workers quickly observed that the students were suffering from the same ailment.
"There's no question that we saw a very interesting and definite pattern of students coming with — to use the medical term — acute gastric enteritis: vomiting, diarrhea, fever and fairly significant dehydration," Silverman said.
Following talks with the sick students, University health officials discovered a link between all of them.
"It was quite remarkable because . . . every student had eaten at Colonial Club. And it was pretty clear to us and we had not seen a student from another eating club," Silverman said.
At that point, a special University "emergency subgroup," including Robasser, was convened.
Robasser worked with Borough health officials — who are the ones responsible for oversight of the eating clubs — to determine what caused the problem.
To determine what exactly caused the outbreak, Robasser is asking all Colonial members to fill in a case history questionnaire.
At its height, the total number of students admitted to UHS amounted to more than 18 students, though Silverman was unable to confirm this figure until further analysis.
After Colonial officers decided to voluntarily shutdown the club's kitchen for the weekend, Colonial members were given $50 dining cards which could be used in the dining halls and at Frist Campus Center, sending about two-hundred to eat in University dining locations.
"The kitchen was shut down yesterday for all meals. We want to take all precautions we can," Colonial president Tracy Solomon '05 said Saturday.
Professional cleaning crews cleaned the kitchen, which reopened today.
Looking to the future, Robasser said the likelihood of such an outbreak reoccurring at Colonial is slim.
"I don't think there's any concern that they would have a problem in the future. There's no indication of that, but again, we are waiting for results back from clinical specimens."
Silverman said he was happy with how the situation was handled. "We probably prevented something more extensive from happening," he said.
Preliminary results are expected later today and a final report can be expected 48 hours after that, said Robasser.
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