Probe under way to source rugby bug

AN INDEPENDENT medical review is under way to determine what caused the outbreak of severe gastroenteritis among rugby players from Glasgow Warriors and Ulster in Durban last week.

The two international squads from Scotland and Ireland were scheduled to take on the Sharks and Lions last Saturday before they fell ill and the matches were postponed at the eleventh hour.

ethekwini Municipality was vindicated after the United Rugby Championship announced that the teams might have been infected before arriving in the country.

Despite the municipality’s vehement denials, questions were raised about the safety of the city’s tap and sea water when about 50 players became severely ill.

“… there are some indications that they actually brought it with them,” said United Rugby Championship CEO Martin Anayi.

He said at the time the situation was “really stark” and it didn’t make sense to delay the matches by 24 or 48 hours because there were two “very sick” squads.

Anayi said the medical review was important, not to cast any aspersions or accusations, but to understand how this had happened.

He said it was odd that two separate teams fell ill with what appeared to be E coli and norovirus.

The municipality was adamant there were no quality issues with tap water in Umhlanga where the teams had stayed.

“If there were, then many residents of Umhlanga would have fallen ill as well. This is not the case, so which Durban tap water did the teams, and only the teams, consume which would have made professional athletes fall sick, but not ordinary residents in Umhlanga?

“On the issue of swimming, the municipality has consistently communicated which beaches are safe for swimming and which are not. It beggars belief that international rugby teams who were in the country for important fixtures would have swum at beaches that are closed for swimming. The teams and their management would have had to be extremely reckless to do this,” it said.

In a statement, the Glasgow Warriors medical team confirmed that 32 members of their squad had severe gastrointestinal illness while in South Africa.

It said the numbers escalated in the second week of the tour which made them unable to safely field a team against the Emirates Lions in a match scheduled for Johannesburg.

“The symptoms of the illness and transmission behaved like norovirus and this has subsequently been confirmed via medical testing.”

The club said it had “escalated its infection control behaviours immediately” when the first illness

was identified and had sought advice from local and Scottish infection control experts throughout the tour.

Meanwhile, Ulster said, “All precautionary medical, nutritional, and public health advice was adhered to prior to any member of the travelling group falling ill.”

Anayi said time permitting, the postponed matches would be rescheduled to take place in a few weeks.

The postponement of the Sharks versus Ulster match left the home team devastated. It had planned to host its annual Sharkfest last week.

Instead the Sharks’ entertainers and stalls for the all-day family event had to be cancelled, resulting in a loss of more than R1 million.

Anayi said they had to get to the bottom of the matter because the “knock-on consequences” of the postponements were not good for anyone.