Authorities, restaurant tight-lipped on Australian Salmonella probe

The restaurant at the center of Canberra’s largest salmonella outbreak and ACT Health are tight-lipped on the progress of an investigation.

With more than 60 affected diners considering joining a class action law suit, owners of The Copa restaurant at Dickson refused to speak to Fairfax Media raw.egg.mayo.may.13on Monday afternoon and said no comment would be made until the public release of the official report.

ACT Health said on Friday and again on Monday that staff were too busy to respond to questions put to them relating to the incident.

No new cases of salmonella-related illnesses presented at Canberra hospitals over the weekend; leaving the total number of people affected at 140, with 15 of those admitted for treatment.

The Canberra Times reports that dozens of people have responded to statements by The Copa on social media, criticizing the response from restaurant owners after Saturday’s reopening and demanding a public apology.

”Your continued support? In what manner? My wife was hospitalised and I was treated at the ED department … not so much [as] a phone call,” one said. ”Reopening today doesn’t show signs of empathy for the ones that spent raw.egg.mayodays at the hospital for eating something that had salmonella at your restaurant.”

Other users called for suppliers to the business to be identified, while a small number of diners promised to return to the restaurant this week.

A table of raw-egg related outbreaks in Australia is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/raw-egg-related-outbreaks-australia.