Fiji urges Australia to ease travel advice after methanol poisoning ruled out

Fiji has urged Australia to relax its travel advice warnings after toxicology tests on samples of cocktails consumed by seven tourists who fell ill last weekend showed no trace of methanol or illicit substances.

The hospitalisation of the tourists, four of them Australians, after consuming alcoholic drinks at the upmarket Warwick Resort, sparked immediate alarm over suspected methanol poisoning which can be fatal.

The case hit the headlines as it came just weeks after the tragic deaths of Melbourne teenagers Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, who died after drinking tainted alcohol at a backpackers resort in Laos last month.

When the tourists aged 18 to 56 fell ill in Fiji with nausea, vomiting and “neurological symptoms”, Australia immediately updated its travel advice for the popular Pacific holiday paradise.

It warned travellers to “be alert to the potential risks around drink spiking and methanol poisoning through consuming alcoholic drinks”.

The exact cause of the illness is still a mystery but Deputy Prime Minister Viliame Gavoka urged “friends from foreign governments to please review the travel advisory” to “take away the word ‘spike’..and all the precautionary stuff that could affect people making the decisions for (visiting) Fiji.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Fiji’s Health and Deputy PM’s offices have been contacted for comment.

Mr Gavoka delivered the toxicology results with an apology to the visitors whose holiday had ended on “such a note.”

All have since been discharged from hospital and all Australian victims have returned home.

Earlier this week, Mr Gavoka assured visitors that the incident was “extremely isolated” and that no other such occurrences had taken place at either the resort or across Fiji. He said Fiji was determined to “get to the bottom of this” and would be transparent with the final results.

In a statement, the Warwick Resort said it was “deeply concerned” about an “unprecedented event” and that it was working with the authorities to establish the cause of the illness.

“We want to assure all our visitors that we maintain the highest standards of food and beverage safety. We remain committed to the health and safety of our guests,” it added.

The Fijian tourism industry has welcomed the latest test results but will remain in damage control mode until the final probe is completed.

Tourism is the lifeblood of the Fijian economy. It contributes about 40 per cent of GDP — about $1.7 billion per year — and provides employment for more than 120,000 people.

Shadow minister for foreign affairs Simon Birmingham said uncertainty remained over the cause of the tourists’ illness and that Australia would help the Fijian authorities to investigate while supporting an economy that was so dependent on Australian visitors.

“DFAT needs to make sure in terms of the travel advice that it is providing the appropriate warnings to Australians,” he told reporters at a press conference in South Australia on Thursday.

“But nor should it elevate risks in any way that are unjustified or unnecessary because it’s so important to our Pacific family that Australians have that confidence to travel.”

Tourism Fiji chief executive Brent Hill said the industry would like the travel advice to be altered to reflect the findings that methanol poisoning had been ruled out.

Initial reports suggesting methanol could have contaminated the drinks had been “damaging” and the toxicology report now reassured people that there had been no malicious intent, he told The Nightly.

“Drink spiking is still feasible because the tests are still ongoing but certainly methanol was ruled out,” he said.

“Drink spiking happens everywhere you go around the world, and that’s easily preventable by just keeping an eye on your drink. Whereas methanol was always the one that was serious. So, certainly..we would appreciate that being altered.”

The seven affected tourists had reportedly all been in the same bar at the hotel and drinking pina coladas.

Earlier this week, Mr Hill said the hotel was “mystified” about what had happened and had handed over CCTV footage to fully comply with the authorities’ investigation.

“We are dealing with a reputable resort that has many hundreds, if not thousands, of guests travelling through it,” he said.

Nicholas Buckley, a professor of clinical pharmacology at Sydney University, was one of the first to cast doubt on suspicions that methanol was to blame.

On Monday, Professor Buckley pointed out that media reports did not indicate those affected by the cocktails had experienced a key symptom of methanol poisoning — visual problems.

“There’s lots of potential things that this might be,” he told The Nightly.

“The key thing that methanol does is it poisons the retina in your eye, and so people get blurred vision, a kind of snowstorm appearance...hate bright lights, and can go completely blind,” he said.

“People can get really sick for all sorts of reasons overseas — infections, food poisoning. Very little else causes visual problems.”