Regional health authorities on Tuesday confirmed that over 2,000 people had taken ill in the Catalan region of Spain after drinking contaminated bottled water.
It said that as at Monday, a total of 2,020 people had received treatment for a number of symptoms which included vomiting, diarrhoea and fever in Barcelona and its neighbouring city of Tarragona.
The authorities confirmed that the illness was caused by a “norovirus infection” whose source had been traced to spring water bottled in a plant in Andorra.
We are working with authorities in Andorra to discover the causes of the outbreak,’’ it said.
Meanwhile, the company, Eden Springs Group, suspected of supplying the contaminated water, issued a statement on Twitter saying it “deeply regretted the incident”.
The company added that it believed that it had identified the source of the infection, which affected water used in office water dispensers and would recall over 6,000 bottles from over 900 different clients.
(Xinhua/NAN)
