On Jan. 17, while returning to Amherstburg from the Caribbean country, he started throwing up, had stomach cramps and diarrhea. Renaud, a 66-year-old retiree, spent much of the trip home on the airplane in the restroom.
“I refused the meal on the plane, I had to,” he said. “I was really out of it. I was lucky I got home considering the shape I was in.”
In talking with the passengers sitting around them, one woman said four of her six travelling companions were sick. The man sitting in front of Renaud was ill during his stay in Cuba, bed-ridden for a day.
Renaud’s wife Maureen fell ill the next day on Jan. 18. She couldn’t swallow even a couple of sips of water without her stomach churning. Initially she was unable to take medication needed for a medical condition because she couldn’t keep water down. It took 12 hours before she could take her medicine.
To date, tests have confirmed 51 cases of cholera.
“This is the best morning I’ve had,” Renaud said Tuesday, four days after he returned. He will see a doctor on Thursday.
The travellers visited the Varadero region of Cuba and stayed at the Melai Las Antillas, a four-star resort. No visitors to the resort said they were sick in reviews posted on tripadvisor.ca the past two weeks.
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit has no reports of Canadians returning ill from Cuba. Sunwing, the airline and travel tour company Renaud took, has no reports of sick tourists, said Daryl McWilliams, vice- president of sales and marketing.
“We checked Veradaro first to see if we’ve received emails,” he said. “We haven’t. That doesn’t mean people won’t write.”
The health unit will only know of an illness if a sick person goes to a physician and gets a positive test for an illness like cholera, which doctors have to report, said Theresa Marentette, director of health protection.
“We’ve not received any reports or complaints about travel to Cuba,” she said Tuesday.
Three local travel agencies said they have heard no stories from customers who have returned from Cuba recently about being sick.
A year ago, dozens of Canadians returned ill from Cuba suffering from norovirus. The symptoms include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
While trying to recover, Renaud contacted Telehealth Ontario, which advised the couple to eat apple sauce, rice and pasta to get nourishment and drink Gatorade for hydration.
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