At least 13 individuals may have contracted food poisoning from eating at orientation week events and the Marketplace, administrators and students said.
Approximately five residents of Giles Dormitory reported feeling ill and one student was hospitalized. Two residents of Southgate Dormitory also were taken to the emergency room at Duke University Medical Center to be treated Saturday night.
Six more individuals-including both students and parents-also reported getting sick, Director of Dining Services Jim Wulforst said. He added that he did not find the number of sick students to be a noteworthy aberration.
Giles Resident Assistant Zach Chapla, a sophomore, said his residents have complained to him about feeling ill during orientation week.
"Over the past three days, I've had at least four to five people get sick, not from alcohol," he said. "All of them have either eaten at the Marketplace, or I know one or two got sick from the Convocation lunch outside the Chapel."
Wulforst said the cases he heard all complained of getting sick Wednesday night, after they had eaten the chicken wrap with mayonnaise at the Convocation luncheon earlier that day.
"Anything that was associated with the picnic we did a check-up on," Wulforst said. "The food was stored in a refrigerated truck up until 45 minutes before the picnic. At most, the temperature of the sandwiches might have gone up a couple of degrees. Nothing that relates to the picnic has been identified as an issue."
He added, however, that Alpine Bagels-which catered the Convocation luncheon-does not put condiments like mayonnaise in their food. Out of the 25,000 meals served at orientation events, only six cases of illness have been reported to him, Wulforst said.
Freshman Benny Maimon, the Giles resident who was hospitalized, said he did not eat the chicken at the Convocation luncheon. Rather, he said he thought he got sick from eating eggs at the Marketplace Wednesday morning.
Maimon was admitted to the hospital Wednesday night and diagnosed with stomach influenza. Although he left the hospital Thursday morning, Maimon said he continued feeling sick. He then went to the Student Health Center on East, and they told him to return to the hospital, where he stayed until Saturday morning.
The two cases reported in Southgate were unrelated incidents, in which the two students did not live in the same hall and had become sick after eating at two different locations off-campus, said Southgate RA Aishlinn O'Connor, a sophomore and Chronicle columnist. Both students, however, had to be taken to the emergency room and were treated for dehydration after they had been sick for the previous 36 hours.
Southgate RA Vishar Amin, a senior, said the Medical Center told him the students' complications could just be a "bug" that is being spread, and they were not sure of the exact causes of the sickness because the two students did not have any common eating patterns.
Wulforst added that it is unlikely the food at the Convocation lunch caused the students' sicknesses because of the duration of time between eating the food and the onset of symptoms. The Convocation meal took place around noon, so the attendees should not have fallen ill before midnight that day-, but the cases reported to him complained of sickness around 8 p.m., Wulforst said.
"Typically food-born illnesses have a 12 to 24 hour onset," he said. "Meaning, if you ingest something that's contaminated, it takes 12 to 24 hours to actually incubate to make you sick. The only thing that would make you sick immediately would be a toxin in the food."
Although Chapla said he has heard of more sporadic cases of ill students from other RAs on East, some East RAs said they have not received e-mails or heard any news of alleged food poisoning.
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