USA Swim Team Hit By Acute Gastroenteritis Outbreak At World Championships

Things haven’t exactly gone swimmingly for the U.S.A. Swimming Team at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore. They’ve received a figurative and literal blow to the gut from what’s reportedly been an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis. It’s not clear which specific team members have been affected—or perhaps infected. But there have been notable absences from different races.

Did Acute Gastroenteritis Cause USA Swimmers To Miss Races At The World Aquatics Championships?

One such absence was Torri Huske. She won the gold medal in the women’s 100 meter butterfly at the 2024 Paris Olympics last year but surprisingly did not compete in Sunday’s heat in that event. Why was she an X for that event? Well, USA Swimming posted on X that her skipping that event was to help “prioritize her efforts in the 4x100m freestyle relay,” as you can see below:

Just about an hour later, USA Swimming posted on X about another X. This time it was was Claire Weinstein, who had also competed in the 2024 Olympics, but was a scratch for the women’s 400 meter freestyle:

Were these specific absences due to acute gastroenteritis? Did these scratches only scratch the surface of everyone who’s gotten ill with acute gastroenteritis? Possibly, potentially, maybe, perhaps, who knows? USA Swimming hasn’t said much more about the extent of the acute gastroenteritis outbreak. Regardless, Chandelis Duster reporting for NPR did quote Nikki Warner, senior communications director for USA Swimming, as saying that the team’s medical staff has been “treating those experiencing symptoms and advising the team on further preventative and recovery measures.”

What Is Acute Gastroenteritis?

Now, acute gastroenteritis is a very general term. It’s sort of like saying “a song by Creed.” You know it’s going to be bad but do not necessarily know how bad or what’s causing it without more descriptives. The prefix “gastro” stands for stomach and “entero” refers to the intestines. An “-itis” after any body part in medical-ese or medical-ish means “inflammation of” that body part. So, putting it all together, gastroenteritis is when you’ve got inflammation of the stomach and intestines (potentially both large and small) for some reason. If it were just the stomach that’s inflamed, it would be gastritis. If it were just the intestines, it would be enteritis or colitis if it’s the large intestine.

The word “acute” simply indicates the duration of the gastroenteritis. It’s acute when the problem doesn’t last longer than 14 days. It qualifies as persistent gastroenteritis when the inflammation extends between 14 and 30 days. It becomes “chronic” when the gastroenteritis goes beyond 30 days. The duration, of course, depends on the cause and severity of the gastroenteritis.

What Are The Symptoms Of Acute Gastroenteritis?

The word “acute” may sound like “a cute” but the symptoms of acute gastroenteritis are far from appealing. Inflammation in the stomach can lead to nausea and vomiting as well as loss of appetite, which tends to happen when you are nauseous and vomiting. Inflammation in the intestines can result in problems going to the other end—namely abdominal cramps and diarrhea. So, basically, when there’s stuff coming out on both ends, there’s a good chance that you’ve got gastroenteritis.

Such gastrointestinal symptoms are usually the first things that you’ll notice. And they can come on very quickly—like you are sitting there before a swim meet, date, job interview, bus ride or whatever when suddenly you go “oh, bleep,” and finding a toilet becomes your primary immediate goal in life. Eventually, as your immune system reacts more fully to the problem, more systemic symptoms like a fever, chills, fatigue and body aches may appear.

What Causes Acute Gastroenteritis?

Most cases of acute gastroenteritis are the result of microbes infecting your GI tract. And about 60% of all gastroenteritis cases are the result of your GI tract having gone viral so to speak. That’s when viruses like norovirus, rotavirus, astrovirus, adenovirus, calicivirus or sapovirus somehow find their way into your mouth and then head down to your stomach and intestines to essentially do the nasty and multiply like crazy. I’ve written before in Forbes about the nasty, nasty norovirus, which is responsible for about half the cases of viral gastroenteritis. Norovirus can cause a particularly awful version of gastroenteritis that can result in projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea.

One thing to keep in mind: people frequently refer to viral gastroenteritis as the “stomach flu.” But that’s a misnomer. Expecting the flu virus to cause viral gastroenteritis would be like expecting real wolves to star in the movie Wolf of Wall Street.

When you get acute gastroenteritis through so-called “food poisoning,” the culprit is frequently some kind of bacteria such as Campylobacter, Escherichia coli, Salmonella or Shigella. I’ve written about such food-borne bacterial outbreaks oh so many times, especially those casued by Salmonella. Other infectious causes of acute gastroenteritis include parasites like Giardia. Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora and fungi like Candida and Aspergillis.

Not all cases of acute gastroenteritis are infectious. Different substances like chemicals and drugs can cause acute gastroenteritis as well by damaging the lining of your stomach and intestines. These include alcohol, different anti-inflammatory medications like ibuprofen, other medications like digoxin, cocaine, heavy metals and poisonous mushrooms.

How Do You Prevent Acute Gastroenteritis?

The way to prevent infectious gastroenteritis is to keep everything that may cause acute gastroenteritis from entering your mouth and going down your GI tract. That may be easy when it comes to poisonous mushrooms if you don’t typically forage on the forest floor. But it can be a lot harder when it comes to highly contagious and hardy microbe like norovirus. Nevertheless, taking the following precautions can significantly reduce your risk:

• Washing your hands thoroughly and frequently: Just because we’re no loner in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t mean that you should stop washing your hands. And remember the 20-second rule where you should lather up your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
• Thoroughly clean all objects and surfaces that may touch your mouth or touch things that will go into your mouth like food: This includes all utensils, plates and containers for the food as well as tables and counter tops.
• Don’t share any food or items with anyone with infectious gastroenteritis: Yeah, don’t think, “Now that the person is vomiting, this isn’t the time to spend some real quality time together and get to know each other.”
• Be aware of any food recalls or food-borne outbreaks: Heed the announcements and warnings. When people tell you to return or discard food items, don’t do so i your or someone else’s mouth.
• Stick to trusted food sources and make sure that food is properly handled: Don’t play restaurant roulette or food craps because you know what you could end up with if the food gets contaminated with bad microbes.
• Heat or cook food to appropriately high temperatures: The goal should be to heat all of the food and not just the surface to high enough temperatures to kill or inactivate important microbial threats. This temperature is 165°F (74°C) for Salmonella.
• Don’t swim in potentially contaminated waters: This includes swimming pools that are not properly chlorinated and filtered and many “natural” bodies of water liek ponds and rivers. You may also want to shut your mouth when showering in a country that doesn’t have a safe water supply.
• Be careful about what you put in your mouth:

How Do You Treat Acute Gastroenteritis?

In most cases of infectious gastroenteritis, the treatment is the big “T”: time. You’ve got to wait for the infection to run its course. In the meantime, getting plenty of fluids will be important since diarrhea and vomiting can leave you quite dehydrated. If the symptoms are severe enough, your immune system is weakened or the infection spreads through your GI tract wall and into your blood stream, you may have complications that require hospitalization and may become life-threatening. Such cases may merit other types of treatment.

Chemical or other substances-induced gastroenteritis could require more than times. Of course, it will be key to stop ingesting the offending substance. In some cases, though, other treatments may be needed to clear or counter the substance and its effects.

Again, it’s difficult to tell how much time the U.S. swimmers may beed to fully recover without knowing the cause. Many cases of acute gastroenteritis do resolve within a couple days. But others could take longer. Only time will tell when they all can get back into the swim of things.