46 get stomach
bug at Des Plaines firm
Source of
Article: http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/04/flu-false-alarm-at-des-plaines-company.html
April 30,
2009 11:51 AM |
A stomach
bug that sickened nearly four dozen people at a Des Plaines company last week
has been traced to a food worker who was ill, authorities said today.
The 46 workers at UOP, a manufacturing technology company, were infected by a
norovirus -- a stomach bug -- that apparently was carried by a food service
worker at the firm, said Amy Poore, a spokeswoman for the Cook County
Department of Public Health. The company, a subsidiary of New Jersey-based
Honeywell International, Inc., has a research and development and engineering
facility in Des Plaines, which also houses its corporate headquarters.
The illness
was investigated Wednesday by county health officials and found to be
unrelated to swine flu, Poore said.
Officials at the company's 1,500-person campus at 25 E. Algonquin Rd. in the
northwest suburb began seeing employees call in sick last week, and by the
middle of last week the company had called county health officials, said
Peter Dalpe, a Morristown, New Jersey-based spokesman for Honeywell.
UOP has two cafeterias staffed by contract workers at the business campus,
Dalpe said.
The outbreak was most intense for a few days in "the middle of last
week," Dalpe said.
By today, "everyone is back at work and feeling better," Dalpe
said.
-- Liam Ford
|
