'Important to think carefully about associations being made' after triathletes fall ill following events in Sunderland, says health chief

The chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency would not speculate on whether sewage discharged into the sea may have caused at least 57 triathletes to fall ill with diarrhoea and vomiting after taking part in events as part of the UK leg of the World Triathlon Championship series in Sunderland

About 2,000 people took part in the events last weekend, which included a swim off the city’s Roker beach.

Asked how difficult it would be to establish if there was E.coli in the water so long after the event, Professor Dame Jenny Harries told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think we need to be really careful in establishing the facts, in fact that’s why the UK Health Security Agency’s North East team are looking into this.

“Predominantly, an event such as this is the responsibility of the organisers working with the Environment Agency but we have already worked with British Triathlon, who have been very proactive in sending out a questionnaire which is critical for our work, what that means is we can ask all of those who were there who have symptoms exactly when they had symptoms, what they were and then we will look at any samples (predominantly stool samples) tested.”

Asked if the possible E.coli could have been from sewage discharged into the sea, she said: “As I think both Northumbrian Water and the organisers British Triathlon have said, there are a number of different samples, different testing points and there will be samples from the individual athletes, and until we have all of that put together it’s very important to think carefully about what associations are being made, none of that is available at the moment.”