Depending on who you ask, 22 to 100 guests at a Costa Rica beach hotel were hit with a nasty bit of food poisoning recently. We get this report from insidecostarica.com:
Numbers are flying all over the place as to tourism, the number of tourists, hotel reservations and even the number of hotel guests who, according to the Ministry of Health, got food poisoning at the Hotel Barceló, Playa Tambor.
The Ministry says 100, the hotel PR person Greivin Sandoval says “…only 22…” suffered from pura vida and all “Natural Ingredients”.
It´s all on how you count or how you define “sick”.
We’re guessing the guests define sick a little differently than the hotel PR person defines it.
UPDATE (Dec. 27)
Looks like the Costa Rican ministry of health has now shut the hotel down entirely until it it can determine the cause of the widespread sickness among hotel guests. We get this updated report from the same journal:
The Ministerio de Salud (Health Ministry) shut down the hotel Barceló Playa Tambor following a diarrhea outbreak that affected at least 40 guests.
The beach hotel cannot accept new guests and will have 24 hours to clear out the existing guests. However, the ministra de Slaud, Maria Luisa Avila, said it could possibly take up to a week to evacuate the hotel entirely.
Marlon Prendas, director of the hotel, said the first place the search for the cause was the hotel’s pool.
The closure will be in place until the Health ministry determines the cause of the outbreak.
Up to 150 guests were reported to have suffered nausea and vomiting last week and were treated at the nearby clinic in Paquera, though hotel officials put the number at only 37.
