A leading Bermudian doctor has questioned why health chiefs failed to spot a hotel's water supply as the culprit which struck down hundreds of guests at the Marriott Castle Harbour Hotel nearly two weeks ago.

Dr. Ewart Brown last night claimed he thought the hotel's water supply was the obvious cause for the outbreak of illness at the hotel.

Last week the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. John Cann, said he suspected an airborne virus was responsible -- even though he knew a cracked sewage pipe had been found at the hotel and that high levels of E. coli bacteria - a bug found in faeces -- were found in the water.

Dr. Cann's initial diagnosis fuelled claims by victims of the disease that he was covering up for his department's own blunder. Health officials gave the hotel's water supply the all clear the day before the epidemic struck.

Last night Progressive Labour Party MP Dr. Brown said: "My first inclination would be that the water supply was contaminated with some form of bacteria.

"If people all over the Island were coming down sick then I think you could talk about an airborne virus which could affect people right across the Island.

"But this was confined to one location. If you have 200 people who all become ill and they have all been at the Marriott Hotel then obviously it would have to be some kind of food poisoning or water contamination.'' Dr. Brown's views are shared by a Californian surgeon who was struck down with the illness when he stayed at the hotel.

On Tuesday Dr. Peter Cahill told The Royal Gazette that it was nonsense for Dr. Cann to talk about a virus.

"I knew straight away that it was some kind of food poisoning,'' he said.

"Viruses just don't affect 200 people all in one go like that.'' Dr. Cann has come under increasing pressure to resign over his role in the affair.

Despite accusations that Ministry of Health officials failing to detect water contamination at the hotel, acting Health Minister Quinton Edness has said he is satisfied that there was no cover up and that nobody would be resigning over the incident.

But the team is under investigation from independent officials to see if they could have prevented the outbreak.

Health bosses claim they have still not been able to pin down what exactly caused the disease to spread so rapidly.

But they say that tests so far show that neither E. coli bacteria nor the Norwalk virus have been positively identified as the culprits.

Last night a Ministry of Health spokesman said: "The investigation is continuing. Stool samples from affected persons and water samples from the hotel have been sent to various laboratories overseas for analysis.

"Two officials from the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre are now in Bermuda assisting the Health Department with its investigation and reviewing the steps taken by the department after the health department was notified of illness associated with this outbreak.

"Due to the nature of the diagnostic laboratory work and the epidemiological investigation of these types of outbreaks, results take time and, to date, there has been no conclusive cause of the outbreak.'' The spokesman also confirmed that the presence of E. coli bacteria proved that the hotel's water supply had been contaminated by faeces.

Dr. Ewart Brown