Report of rotavirus from Jean’s Deli products, investigation inconclusive

Graduate student Alecia Spooner consumed a Jean’s Deli vegetable tray for lunch from the HUB newsstand early last month. She felt strange around 8 or 9 p.m. the next day and then fell violently ill.

“By 11 [p.m.] I was vomiting and continued to vomit until 2 or 3 in the morning,” she said.

Unknowingly, she passed the illness on to her husband and child.

“By Sunday at noon, my 7-month-old was vomiting and had diarrhea. … Monday night my husband was violently ill,” Spooner said.

She and her husband took the infant to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital.

“In the ER they suspected it was rotavirus … and we had passed it on to each other,” she said.

Rotavirus is primarily transmitted through fecal-oral contact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A sick person who uses the restroom and then touches anything from food to a door handle can spread the virus. The incubation period is about 48 hours. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhea and even severe abdominal pain. Preventing dehydration is the primary concern, especially with children.

Her son has since recovered, Spooner said, but she fell ill again weeks later with the same symptoms.

She asked herself what she had done the same. She had eaten a Jean’s Deli turkey sandwich the day before for lunch, she said.

“I went by the newsstand and the case is full of a new shipment of these sandwiches.” Spooner said. “The manager should have put a sign that said, ‘We cannot offer these at this time.’”

She voiced her concerns to the manager of the newsstand, Jason Hansen. Hansen informed John Chang, the owner of Jean’s Deli, of Spooner’s illness. Paul Zuchowski, the associate director of student activities and union facilities, said that Charles Easterberg, one of the school’s sanitarians, followed up on the matter. Easterberg could not be reached for comment at press time.

“The health department, they checked … and everything was okay,” Chang said. “We tracked everything on our side. I didn’t see anything. [There was] no other complaining.”

Jean’s Deli has supplied the newsstand for 18 years, he said. In that time, he estimated, there had been only two to three reports of sickness. Every day he delivers 150 sandwiches, he said, and they are usually sold out within one to two days.

He said his employees always wear gloves, and the school sanitary department does surprise inspections. None of his employees had been sick at the time, he said.

“My son goes to the UW,” he said. “I’m making these for my son.”

If there had been contamination, it may not have been widespread.

“Just because one sandwich was made by Employee X doesn’t mean Employee X made every sandwich,” Zuchowski said.

In other words, one careless employee at Jean’s Deli may have contaminated only the food he or she prepared, while everything else was clean.

As of yet, there is no way to know conclusively whether Spooner’s meals were contaminated with the rotavirus.

“You know we don’t have the product to test anymore. The standard in the health industry is you have to test the actual product [that the sick person consumed],” he said.

Spooner was not the only person who was ill in April. Some employees of the Environmental Health and Safety department at the UW also fell ill, Zuchowski said.

“Some of them had thought they had eaten a Jean’s Deli item,” he said.

There were also employees who were sick that had not eaten Jean’s Deli food and others who didn’t get sick at all.

“There’s been so much illness on campus, we’ve lost employees for weeks at a time,” he said. “Yes, a couple were sick that ate Jean’s Deli and others were sick that didn’t eat Jean’s Deli.”

Zuchowski does not doubt Spooner’s honesty, he said. There just have not been any other reports since then.

“All we can act on is what we know,” he said. Without the original product to test, he said, “there’s no conclusive evidence. … You want to be absolutely sure.”

In terms of the next step, Zuchowski said, “We did what we could and we’re keeping an eye out.”

Chang was apologetic.

“I feel really sorry that [Spooner] got sick from my sandwich, but that’s all I can say at this point,” he said.