550 people report illness after P.E.I. shellfish festival, health officials say

More than 550 people who attended the P.E.I. International Shellfish Festival last weekend reported getting sick, according to the province's chief public health officer. 

"This is the biggest gastrointestinal illness outbreak we have on record," Dr. Heather Morrison told CBC News on Friday.

Stool samples taken from people who ate food at the festival have tested positive for norovirus, Morrison said.

"That makes sense to us given all the information that we have." 

The illness caused four people to go to emergency departments, and one person to be hospitalized, Morrison said. 

Norovirus is transmitted in a number of ways, like eating contaminated food, touching contaminated surfaces, or being in contact with someone who has the virus, she said. 

The CPHO began its investigation earlier this week after people began reporting symptoms including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps and fever after attending the event, which was held Sept. 19-22 in Charlottetown.

Organizers said over 3,200 people attended the shellfish festival on Saturday alone, and the four-day attendance was over 9,000.

Anyone with symptoms was advised to fill out an online food questionnaire in an effort to help track the extent of the outbreak and determine the cause. 

"It was more people than we had initially even thought," she said. "I would venture [to] guess there were probably more people that were sick than even responded to the questionnaire." 

The Chief Public Health Office also contacted the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and other health-care staff to remind them to take stool samples from anyone who presented with symptoms. 

But despite the highly contagious nature of norovirus, Morrison said hospitals have not reported a recent spike in cases.  

It's just sheer bad luck.— Liam Dolan, P.E.I. International Shellfish Festival board chair

Liam Dolan, board chair for the shellfish festival, is hopeful the outbreak will not tarnish the reputation of the annual event in downtown Charlottetown. 

"I feel bad for anybody that did get sick, but it was out of our control to a certain degree," he said. "So I think we are going to learn from this and move on." 

With over four decades working in hospitality, Dolan said he's never seen anything like this. 

"I'm very disappointed that something like this can happen. We've had 27 years of a great track record for this festival," he said, adding that regular cleaning and safe food handling has always been a priority. 

"We do everything that needs to be done. It's just sheer bad luck."

Future guidance

As part of its investigation, the CPHO made six recommendations to lower the risk of gastrointestinal illness outbreaks at future events. 

"With these kinds of outbreaks, everyone learns and no one wants anyone to get sick," Morrison said. "It's a reminder I think [that] these ... things can happen." 

The recommendations include: 

1. Additional health inspections before and during the festival.

2. Enhanced sanitation of food preparation areas and common touch surfaces to prevent potential cross-contamination of foods.

3. Develop a policy to exclude staff and food handlers from working when ill and have a dedicated staff person to check daily with staff and food handlers about illnesses.

4. Have easily visible hand washing stations available at all washrooms and develop a policy to ensure they are checked and re-filled during the event.

5. Work with a sanitation company to ensure decontamination of common touch surfaces in the washrooms daily.

6. Maintain samples of prepared foods in cold storage for a minimum of 48 hours after the event has ended.

Going forward, Morrison thinks the shellfish festival and similar events will be "safer than they ever have been," based on what was learned from this incident. 

She said the CPHO will work with the organizers next year, and do more inspections before and during the festival. 

'We learned from this'

Dolan agrees with all of the recommendations made by CPHO. 

"We will be implementing them to the fullest, and probably adding more of our own," he said. 

The plan next year is to do pre-shift screening to check if workers are sick, similar to what was done during the height of COVID-19, said Dolan. 

"We have to ask the questions, and we will ask the questions. And that is something that we learned from this."