We have 4 American Wwoofers, 3 very sick with vommiting/diarea/ stomach cramps and we're in and out of doctor surgeries, A&E, hospitals for nearly a week. I know of 2 other seperate cases at two seperate hosts in Clare over the last 2 months. Same symptoms and it lasts up to 4/5 weeks wich seems way longer than when we ourselves or some other Wwoofers get the vomitting bugs; symptons only lasting 24 hours. Whats going on? Is there any more similar experiences out there, especially with the American Wwoofers in other farms??? Biddy O' Dea
"American" bug???
Mon, 14/06/2010 - 23:10
Thu, 17/06/2010 - 20:20
#2
Count yourself lucky! My American two years ago was constantly vomiting, diarhoea, etc and on anti-biotics from the GP. She refused to go to hospital because she knew she had Crone's Disease and didn't want to be sent home. After two months of nursing her, and in the teeth of opposition from her parents (she wasn't insured), I put her on a plane back to the US. Her parents then emailed their thanks as she was bleeding internally.
Fri, 18/06/2010 - 14:50
#3
Biddy ~ I looked at your profile and see that you have lots of farm animals. I wonder if the other cases you've heard of were on similar farms?
Fri, 18/06/2010 - 23:42
#4
don't know, most animals are out this time of the year and the Wwoofers are mostly helping with gardening, it just seems like the vomitting bug, but they get it way worse, even the nurse in the hospital was kinda making a joke about Americans being weaker or more suspectable, maybe they react to our drinking water quality, I just wonder, that's why I put out this notice!
Mon, 12/07/2010 - 16:47
#5
Just wanted to add that we had lots of wwoofers last year and the only one that got sick was a girl from the US, she had the same vomiting bug and was ill for about 6 weeks. Noone else got it and we even called out the enviromental health to check the water, which was ok. I was really worried about our kids picking it up, but she was the only one that had it. Cant imagine how you must be coping with it!!
Mon, 12/07/2010 - 17:58
#6
I suggest that WWOOFers from across the Atlantic are more likely to be exposed to new bugs while in Europe. As a high percentage of our WWOOFers are from USA, it follows that there is a high probability that "WWOOFer with bug = American". But that does not mean that most Americans will get a bug. It just seems that way.
Sat, 31/07/2010 - 14:31
#7
joined this conversation rather late but . . . in the Vietnamese War US soldiers were more than 30 times more liable to sickness than their Australian counterparts. Partly the issues were thought to be psychological or drug related but the major conclusion was that US life was so disinfected and sanitised that many US soldiers had negligible resistance.
Sat, 31/07/2010 - 19:08
#8
Rob and Victoria - do you have any references for that statistic?
Uh-Oh...