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No single cause for WOMAD attendees that fell ill at this year’s event
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 14 August 2023
The UK Health Security Agency has concluded that there wasn’t a singular cause that resulted in various people falling ill after attending last month’s WOMAD festival. Which suggests each of those festival-goers got ill for different reasons, rather than because of a specific incident on-site at the event.
It emerged last week that, after a number of festival-goers had fallen ill during and after WOMAD, the event’s organisers were working with the UKHSA and Wiltshire Council to assess if there was a singular cause.
In a statement on Friday, festival organisers explained that: “When WOMAD learnt about a number of people being ill during and after the festival we were greatly concerned”.
“We take the well-being of anyone onsite at WOMAD very seriously,” they added, “and we initially advised the environmental health team at Wiltshire Council of a possible issue and on review they involved the UKHSA who initiated an investigation into the outbreak of illness and any possible causes”.
The statement then confirmed that “the UKHSA have today said that ‘none of the tests carried out have identified a singular cause’ and that ‘the number of people that have reported illness are small as a proportion of the total number of festival goers’”.
The organisers then said: “We are greatly relieved to learn that the outbreak was both limited in its reach and that there is no evidence to support any concern that illness may have been caused by actions taken onsite either by WOMAD as festival producers or any of our partners including food traders”.
“This does not diminish in any way our concern for any of the people affected and we wish them a speedy recovery”, they added. “We would like to thank members of the public who have shared information with us about their symptoms and their experiences at WOMAD festival this year”.
