Employees sick with norovirus at an Indiana Subway restaurant continued working despite their illness, a health department investigation has found.
The ill workers -- who exhibited norovirus symptoms including nausea, diarrhea and vomiting -- were sickened by an outbreak that affected 90 Blackford County residents between January 5 and 8 of this year.
The Muncie Star Press reported information in an official document that found "Subway was a contributing factor to the spread of norovirus in Blackford County."
The document included the interviews of 75 people, 72 of which admitted to eating at the Subway in Hartford City before getting sick.
Subway restaurants have been involved in norovirus poisonings in the past. In 2009, a group of Minneapolis Public School employees sued the chain, claiming they'd been sickened after eating "party" subs from a shop in Roseville, Minn. two years prior. The investigation that followed found that two Subway employees had reported being sick in the days leading up to preparing the subs.
In 2010, a Subway in Lombard, Ill. was sued by several patrons after health officials confirmed 21 cases of Shigella poisoning linked to food in the restaurant. Seven of those sickenings required hospitalizations.