Gastroenteritis Outbreak Strikes Breast Cancer Awareness Trek in Moroccan Sahara

"With Chloé, we fell ill, towards the end of the trek. I’m still under treatment, in fact. Hundreds of us were sick, with a very severe gastroenteritis. Some of us had to be hospitalized, or even repatriated! But we were still able to complete our three days of walking without any problem, even if some participants had to interrupt their journey!" confides Martine Magisson to the newspaper Le Dauphiné.

Chloé Deliau confirms Martine’s words. "We couldn’t participate in the ’solidarity’ event, the fourth day: the ascent of the highest dune in the Mergouza desert. We were very disappointed. 330 women fell ill, contaminated by a bacterium. The return to France was complicated, but it’s behind us!" Unlike Martine and Chloé, Nadège Zahraoui was not infected. "It wasn’t a pleasure to see them (Martine and Chloé, editor’s note) in that state," she recounts.

According to Magisson, the unsanitary conditions of the camp are the source of this epidemic. "You have to understand that we were in the desert, and the septic tanks were open-air, not far from the kitchens. Between participants and staff, we were close to 1,000 people. Faced with the scale of the epidemic, the medical team was not structured and did not even ask for outside help. It was overwhelmed!" she details.

And Nadège wonders: "Why pay for mandatory repatriation insurance and keep everyone at the bivouac! I imagine we don’t know everything!" Back in France, the participants in the Rose Trip Maroc have created a collective to sue the operator Désertours who, as part of the ongoing investigation, assures "full cooperation to determine the nature, origin of the epidemic, as well as how it spread."