Street Spice salmonella outbreak: Online survey

Visitors to a Tyneside food festival at the centre of a food poisoning probe are being urged to take part in an online survey to identify the source.

More than 380 visitors to the three-day Street Spice event reported symptoms including diarrhoea and abdominal pain.

Salmonella has now been found in 14 samples submitted for testing.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) is urging all visitors to fill in the survey to say where they ate so the source can be traced.

Newcastle Council is also involved in the investigation.

A spokesman for the HPA said: "It is important that we collect information from all attendees, including people with symptoms and those without symptoms.

Three vendors

"This is to try to find the cause of the illness with the hope that we may be able to prevent further illness in the future.

"A total of three vendors are highlighted in this questionnaire.

"We would not expect illness to be associated with all vendors but it is important to ascertain as much information as we can about each of them."

An estimated 12,000 people attended the event, which took place in Times Square between 28 February and 2 March.

One of the organisers, Bob Arora, said a full list of precautions had been taken to ensure high levels of hygiene.