Cape Verde in the news, anyone been ?

[telewubbies]

4 people have died from shigella https://apple.news/AQr2oZoCmTKq1wxHEymetWg

We went January 2020, just before Covid kicked off in the uk. We had a lovely time and I particularly remember how good the food was. There were flies on the outside buffets, but they were covered with plastic containers.
I was quite paranoid before we went about getting a sickness bug, so I took lots of hand gel, Imodium etc but we never became ill. The water is a recycled system so I wonder if that has anything to do with the sickness bug outbreaks?
Our hotel was covered in cats, so bad that we had to request to be moved as the cats were crying at your doors at night to be let in and keeping you awake, I was told by a TUI rep that this is a cat hotel which I found quite funny and reminded her that we had paid £4k for our holiday and we shouldn’t be expected to share our room with cats.

Had anyone else been and if so what was your experience ?

I haven’t but friends go every year, also with TUI was talking about this yesterday and she doesn’t recognise what was written, said it was all lovely. The real issue seems to be inadequate medical facilities, something you risk going to somewhere exotic.

I think the ai hotel set up and the well known tour operator lulls people into a false sense of security, it’s an African resort with minimal infrastructure. When I travel outside of Europe I won’t touch salads, drink only branded bottled water, no ice in drinks etc and never get sick, not even in notorious places like India, and we eat in local restaurants not tourist places. If you have underlying health problems I’d even avoid the canaries, it’s a long way to mainland Europe and top notch facilities (Tenerife has a decent hospital but if you are that ill you want to be in Barcelona etc)

Yes I agree, when we landed on Boa Vista we were shocked just how Barron the island was, it was like landing on mars, very beautiful but it hit home how isolated you was. And some people love the idea of that, but it did make you feel vulnerable. We heard stories of people breaking bones in the rough seas and having to be airlifted to Tenerife. I’m glad we didn’t get ill, more so my 4 year old at the time as it could’ve been disastrous. I feel for the people in the news article, they tried to take out one woman’s appendix ! Scary.

Yes, we were told of a man who broke a leg in the sea but insurance wouldn’t pay as there were red flags on the beach. So he had to fund himself to be medically evacuated to Tenerife.
I wouldn’t go there, plenty of nicer, safer places.

Tbf there is red flags up all the time, so it if very much at your own risk. We literally put our ties in but there was one young man going further and further out and I thought he must be crazy as you wouldn’t be able to safely swim back out if you got into trouble.

I’ve attached a couple of pics of the beauty of the island

I was there a couple of weeks ago it was lovely! We stayed at one of the hotels on Bio vista, I hadn’t heard about Shigella until we got there! There was hand gel in all the restaurants, the toilets were cleaned hourly, we even saw them cleaning the pool step handles in the morning and in general the hotel was spotless, I didn’t see a dirty toilet in all the time I was there!
We were told that the fruit & salads were washed with bottled water, to use bottled water to clean our teeth, we were there for 2 weeks and none of the 4 of us were Ill.
I loved it and for a relaxing winter holiday it was great!

If you go to Senegal on holiday, then you have to accept that health care facilities, and general infrastructure (including sanitation) away from resort hotels will be less developed than here. IMO it's not TUI's fault. They are responsible for how they sell the holiday, safety and cleanliness of the hotels, etc.
But its not unreasonable of them to assume that people will realise that Senegalese hospitals won't be as well equipped as UK ones.

V sad article. Feel v sorry for the families affected.

I went to Sal in December for the first time, but I went self-catering as I had heard of tummy bugs in AI places. (Been to Riu hotels in canaries and rate them highly btw). I loved the island, my apartment complex was kept spotless by the cleaning staff, I ate out and prepared food myself and thankfully was not ill. It is an African nation though, and their infrastructure etc reflects that.

They are building a new hospital on Sal which is going to open shortly, which hopefully will help, but I’m not sure where the staff are trained, so it remains to be seen. The insurers not being able to contact the clinic is particularly worrying! I think the lack of proper hospital care is the big issue and it will curb tourism unless they can sort it out. Tourists definitely need to go with their eyes open - this is not Europe and the healthcare standards reflect that.

We went to the Riu Karamboa in March 2014. My parents went to Sal probably 6 or 7 years before that.

We went because we knew there was nothing there other than the sun and us, basically, as DH had just come back from a 4 month deployment with the RAF and the kids were finally old enough to be left on their own. We absolutely loved it. The hotel was spotless, the food was beautiful and the staff were so friendly. Whenever we’ve done AI since, we’ve always said it’s not been a patch on what we had there.

We looked to go back about 18mths/2yrs ago but I found a facebook group of thousands of people who have become unwell whilst on holiday there so we decided against it. I’m not in the best of health so we’d have been silly to go.

I think they’ve overdeveloped the islands so they cannot cope with the amount of people who are going in and out. When we went to Boa Vista there was 2 hotels in the island and I think there was 3 on Sal. People weren’t getting sick like they are now.

We went with TUI around 2019 I think with 2 teens
Lovely small hotel and no hygiene issues at all, had a great time
We did speak to a lady at the airport who had been very ill (different hotel) nd had been taken by ambulance to a hotel and the ambulance had broken down halfway so they had put her in a taxi while still on a drip. She said when she eventually got to the hospital it was very chaotic and dirty.
The sea was quite rough but our hotel had a small man made cove off the beach so pretty safe

We went to Sal last year, stayed in a RUI hotel, none of us were sick, food was nice enough even for a picky eater.

I saw lots of articles about sickness before we went, we are going to the Dominican this year and I am seeing lots of posts about sickness on the facebook groups for there too.

Dominican Republic? I've been 3x and was never sick. Never been there in an AI though.