Seven people hospitalised in Fiji with suspected severe alcohol poisoning are reported to be in a stable condition, Tourism Fiji chief executive Brent Hill says.
The victims, including four Australian tourists, an American, and two other foreigners who live in Fiji, had been drinking cocktails at the five-star Warwick Resort, on the Coral Coast of Viti Levu island, before they fell ill.
All were transferred to the larger Lautoka Hospital from Sigatoka Hospital because of the severity of their condition.
Hill told RNZ Pacific they all were in a stable condition and there had been improvement in some symptoms.
"We don't want to speculate on exactly the cause; we don't know that yet," he said.
"But what we do know is that it was limited to only seven tourists at one resort and only at one bar in that resort as well.
"Talking to the management they're quite perplexed as to how it's happened, and certainly there are no accusations around that something's been put into their drink or been diluted or using a foreign substance."
A resort guest, who did not want to be named, told RNZ Pacific that his friend, a local, was having seizures on Saturday afternoon and was too ill to get up.
The guest said he was certain the drinks had been tampered with.
"We have not received any proper communication from the Warwick team and just asked one of my friends to sign an indemnity form."
He said he and the group all had one drink each at the adult pool bar.
"Everyone that I saw at the Sigatoka Hospital all drank the piña colada."
"The hospital and doctors were the saving grace... they were really overwhelmed, but tried they best to get everyone stable and moved out to Lautoka ICU overnight."
Fiji's Health Secretary Dr Jemesa Tudravu told local media two out of the seven affected people had been placed on life support over the weekend.
However, they have since recovered but remain in critical condition.
Tudravu said all those affected were tourists.
But the resort guest who spoke to RNZ Pacific claims that Tudravu has completely ignored the fact that locals were also affected.
Last month, six foreign tourists died after consuming contaminated alcohol in Laos.
Hill said the tourism industry was very conscious of what happened in Laos, but the Fiji incident is "a long way from that".
"The resort has certainly given us assurance that there's no indication around substituting substances in beverages and so on. So it's a little bit of a mystery that a nice resort would experience something like this."
When asked if tourists needed to be careful ordering cocktails in Fiji, Hill said people needed to be careful anywhere around the world, including at home.
"The risk is very, very small - but at the same time, we don't want to diminish for these seven people.
"It's obviously been a really unfortunate experience and we certainly are trying to work out what's caused that and our investigation is continuing."
Brent said he has never heard of anything like this happening in Fiji before and hoped it would not affect the Pacific nation's reputation as a tourist destination.
"I do understand, of course, based on recent events in Southeast Asia that people want assurance that they can be safe, and certainly from our perspective it's a really isolated case."
A spokesperson for Warwick Fiji told RNZ Pacific that they have "nothing to disclose".
RNZ Pacific was told the general manager of the high-end resort will not front for an interview because the suspected poisoning was still under investigation.
Australia Treasurer Jim Chalmers told a news conference consular officials were helping those impacted along with their families, while Fiji's police were leading an investigation into the poisoning.
"We are thinking of the friends and family of the people who are affected. This is no doubt a very distressing time for them," he said.
The Australian government has updated its travel advice for Fiji to flag dangers of drink spiking, and warned Australians more generally about the risk of alcohol poisoning when travelling.
"If Australians are travelling, be very alert to the potential risks in this case around drink spiking and alcohol poisoning," Chalmers said.
- additional reporting by Reuters
