[BurbankKarl]

Health officials are investigating a mystery illness that affected dozens of players, coaches and parents at a girls'regional volleyball tournament.

Eighty tournament participants staying at the Reno Hilton reported flu-like symptoms Sunday, said Bob Sack, director of environmental health at the Washoe County District Health Department.

Of those, about 25 sought treatment at the Washoe Medical Center emergency room and"a few"were admitted overnight, said hospital spokeswoman Judy Davis.

"We aren't even close to having a guess on the cause,"Sack said."The only commonality is they stayed at the Hilton and are associated with a large volleyball tournament."

The four-day tournament, which ended Sunday, attracted hundreds of teenage girls from across the West. The girls play for clubs.

Sack said the girls and others began experiencing nausea, diarrhea and other symptoms early Sunday morning.

Health officials took stool samples Sunday and results were not expected until one to two days.

Past outbreaks at Reno casinos were caused by restaurant employees who either showed up sick or failed to wash hands, Sack said.

"They can be associated with food at a restaurant, but so far we haven't been able to check it back to any one facility,"he said."It's too early to jump to any conclusions."

Tom Arnott, 52, of Honolulu, said he, his daughter and three of her teammates became ill Sunday. He spent most of the day at the hospital with a 103-degree fever.

"I started feeling a queasy stomach at 3 this morning. One of my daughter's teammates then joined us and it went from bad to worse,"he said outside the hospital emergency room in the evening.

"I still feel terrible. I just want to go back to the hotel room and sleep,"Arnott said.

Health officials plan to inspect the Hilton's kitchen and water systems on Monday as part of their investigation.

Hilton officials stepped up efforts to get employees to wash hands or stay home if sick, Sack said.

"The Hilton is really jumping on it,"he said."We'll look at it systematically to find out the cause."

[petuniasevan]

URL:

http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2003/04/20/39986.php?sp1=rgj&sp2=Umbrella&sp3=Umbrella

[Bogey78O]

Legionaires?

[petuniasevan]

I just watched a Discovery Health Channel special the other day. It dealt with the outbreak of illness in Walkerton Ontario in 2000. It was the dreaded E. coli 0157:H7 bacterium, for which there is no cure, only palliative treatment.

The water supply was the source of the contamination. The testing authorities had not been properly testing the water. It ended up being a well that was contaminated by pasture runoff during a storm.

7 people died because someone took a paperwork shortcut.

Hopefully this is not the same illness.

[CJ Wolf]

"Past outbreaks at Reno casinos were caused by restaurant employees who either showed up sick or failed to wash hands, Sack said."

Always blaming the poor restaurant people for the flu. It could have started by customer.

[JustPiper]

What better way to use bio/chem then the "Hilton".

[flamefront]

"We aren't even close to having a guess on the cause,"

... therefore no quarantine, no preventative methods! Same response with other cases in the U.S. where symptoms come close but do not fulfill WHO requirements for SARS.

Full CYA mode, avoid liability, maintain denial, avoid bad publicity.

The trouble is that no credible trust will emerge in the health system in the future.