More than 170 school principals and education staff have fallen ill with suspected salmonella poisoning in one of Queensland's worst food poisoning outbreaks.
The food poisoning has been traced back to a two-day conference held last week at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, the host of last year's G20 Leaders summit.
More than 1200 delegates attended the Department of Education and Training conference on Thursday and Friday.
So far, authorities have received reports of 175 attendees falling ill, the majority of whom are principals from schools across the state.
Twenty-four, including 22 principals, had to be treated in hospital, but none was in a critical condition.
Queensland's chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, has pointed to salmonella as the likely cause but investigations are continuing.
"The usual causes for salmonella is poorly cooked meat, poultry and eggs," she said.
"You can get person-to-person transmission but given there are so many people unwell we think it's probably related to the food they shared."
Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre general manager Bob O'Keeffe said a full investigation into the cause of the suspected salmonella poisoning was underway.
Queensland Health is working with the convention centre to identify which food served at the conference could have caused the outbreak.
"Our focus at the moment is to work out what the food source was and to make sure that's removed," Dr Young said.
"We have not had any advice from any of the other functions (at the centre); all of the people who have been sick have been from this one function."
Dr Young admitted it was one of the largest food poisoning outbreaks seen in Queensland.
Salmonella food poisoning causes fever, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, vomiting and dehydration and can exacerbate existing health problems.
Education Minister Kate Jones said affected schools would still function well without their principals.
"We have great capacity in our schools and we're very confident that the schools are running well," Ms Jones said.
"We're just praying the principals get well soon."
Queensland Health's investigation is expected to be completed within two days.
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