13 may have been sickened by food at North Carolina church barbecue, officials say

At least 13 people may have been sickened by food from a Charlotte area church barbecue, Cabarrus Health Alliance officials said in a news release on the agency’s website Friday night.

“The common thread is food eaten from Poplar Tent Presbyterian Church BBQ” in Kannapolis, the news release said.

People have reported “vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal cramps,” officials said in the news release.

That ”is a small number of people experiencing these symptoms out of 1,000s who ate there, but the coincidence of so many with the same symptoms, same onset of illness, and same food source does cause concern and the need for public outreach,” the news release said.

Anyone who ate at the barbecue Thursday should discard any food they took home, Erin Shoe, CHA’s chief operating officer, said in the news release.

Shoe also encourages anyone who ate at the event to email their name and contact information to investigation@cabarrushealth.org to help CHA and state officials with their “ongoing investigation,” according to the news release.

“We’ve talked with people who ate there who are sick, and we’ve talked to people who ate there and are not sick,” Shoe said in the news release. “We cannot say with absolute certainty that food from the BBQ is the culprit but we do think it’s important to let the community know just in case they have leftovers.”

This story was originally published November 2, 2018 at 10:06 PM.