On May 3, 2011, the City of Bloomington Environmental Health (CBEH) received a report from management at a hotel that a number of individuals who had stayed at the hotel, including a mission group or attended a benefit auction held at the hotel on April 30 had developed gastrointestinal illness. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) initiated an investigation was initiated Immediately.

MDH staff interviewed hotel guests about food consumption and illness history. Hotel guests who attended a benefit auction held on Saturday April 30 received an email from the auction organizers which included MDH contact information. MDH staff interviewed 113 hotel guests, including 100 auction attendees, 8 members of a mission group, and 5 independent complainants. Sixty-one (54%) guests met the case definition. No one was hospitalized and no one died. Stool samples submitted by five ill auction attendees tested positive for norovirus GII.

Due to a lack of non-ill controls among the mission group and other hotel guests, analysis of food
exposures was restricted to auction attendees. By univariate analysis, consuming fresh fruit skewers
was significantly associated with illness (40 of 48 cases vs. 18 of 34 controls; odds ratio [OR], 4.4; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4 to 14.1; p = 0.003).

CBEH sanitarians interviewed 69 hotel employees. Seven, including three restaurant staff, reported
recent gastrointestinal illness. One stool specimen submitted by the bartender who worked at the benefit auction tested positive for norovirus GII. Nucleic acid sequencing was conducted on the five positive norovirus samples from auction attendees and the one norovirus sample from the ill hotel employee; the nucleic acid sequences were indistinguishable.

This was a foodborne outbreak of norovirus gastroenteritis associated with a hotel in Bloomington.
While fresh fruit skewers were identified as the vehicle among auction attendees, the original source
of contamination was not identified. Since the fruit on the skewers was peeled and cut at the hotel, it is more plausible that a food worker was the source of the contamination as opposed to the fruit being contaminated prior to arriving at the hotel. Hotel employees with illness onsets from April 28 through May 3 were identified, and transmission of norovirus from ill food workers to hotel guests was more evident later in the outbreak.