Bowel disorders
Henry J. Woodford in Essential Geriatrics, 2022
Noroviruses are RNA viruses that commonly cause acute gastroenteritis, especially in hospital and care home settings. Following a 12-to-24-hour incubation period, infections present with abdominal cramping, watery diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting.49 However, up to 30% of infected people are asymptomatic.50 Norovirus infection produces a brief and self-limiting illness in most people (within three days) but frail older people are at increased risk of morbidity (e.g. dehydration or aspiration pneumonia) and mortality.49 In people aged over 85, symptoms commonly last four to nine days.50 Transmission is by person to person, contact with contaminated surfaces or consuming contaminated food (i.e. infected food handlers). Person to person spread is by far the commonest factor in health and care settings.49 Norovirus is highly infectious due to the combination of high viral shedding in vomit and stools, low infectious dose required and environmental stability of the organism.
The safety and quality of food
Geoffrey P. Webb in Nutrition, 2019
With some of the now most important foodborne bacteria, illness can result from the consumption of small numbers of organisms (say <10,000) and thus contamination of any food with these organisms may in itself be sufficient to cause illness. Such organism are said to have a low infective dose and in these cases infection could result from drinking contaminated water or in some cases spread from person to person or from animals to people e.g. in children’s petting farms. Of the major food-poisoning bacteria, both the Campylobacter and E. coli 0157 have a low infective dose. Simple contamination of the food is enough to cause food poisoning in such cases if the food is not subjected to further heat treatment. Norovirus is highly contagious and can be spread from person-to-person as well as from contaminated food.
Infection control
Philip Woodrow in Nursing Acutely Ill Adults, 2015
Norovirus causes nearly one fifth of cases of acute gastroenteritis (Ahmed et al., 2014), typically during winter, hence its media name of ‘winter vomiting virus’. Vomiting is often projectile and watery diarrhoea profuse, potentially causing life-threatening dehydration, so treatment is primarily with fluids and electrolytes (Glass et al., 2009). It is highly contagious, so patients infected should be isolated. Incubation is rapid (10–51 hours) (Glass et al., 2009), so once infection is detected, most people (staff and patients) will have been exposed to it. Preventing spread to other wards is therefore the priority (Hairon, 2008). Norovirus is resistant to alcohol handrubs, necessitating hand washing with soap and water (Loveday et al., 2014).
News Briefs
Published in Journal of Community Health Nursing, 2019
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently featured an update on preventing the spread of norovirus. According to the CDC, norovirus is the primary cause of acute gastroenteritis in the United States (US), causing from 19 to 21 million cases annually. Often known by names such as the stomach flu or food poisoning, norovirus is highly contagious. Norovirus is responsible for over 56,000 hospitalizations and over 570 deaths yearly in the US mostly in children and the elderly, according to a CDC source (https://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/downloads/keyfacts.pdf). Symptoms of norovirus illness include vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and stomach pain and may include fever, headache, or body aches. According to the CDC, a person with norovirus illness can spread it by close contact with other people, by preparing and sharing food with others, or by contaminating surfaces in bathrooms, kitchens, and elsewhere. The CDC feature lists and illustrates specific steps to take to prevent the spread of norovirus and includes links to more information on norovirus disease. The CDC feature on norovirus prevention was retrieved 08 December 2018 at https://www.cdc.gov/features/norovirus/index.html.
Understanding the relationship between norovirus diversity and immunity
Published in Gut Microbes, 2021
Lauren A. Ford-Siltz, Kentaro Tohma, Gabriel I. Parra
Human noroviruses are the leading cause of viral gastroenteritis in the modern world, and are implicated in upwards of 200,000 deaths worldwide, primarily in children from developing countries.20,21 In healthy individuals, norovirus causes acute gastroenteritis (diarrhea and vomiting) that resolves within 24–48 hours, with virus shedding typically lasting between 2 and 8 weeks in the stool.22 However, in vulnerable populations (like the elderly, malnourished children, or immunocompromised individuals), the length and severity of disease is increased. Specifically, in immunocompromised individuals, gastroenteritis symptoms and viral shedding can last months or years.23 In addition to the disease burden, norovirus presents a major impact on the global economy, with around 4.2 USD billion in direct health-care costs and an additional 60.3 USD billion in indirect costs, i.e. loss of productivity due to absenteeism of work or morbidity.24
Impact of Levy noise on a stochastic Norovirus epidemic model with information intervention
Published in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 2023
Ting Cui, Anwarud Din, Peijiang Liu, Amir Khan
The dry atmosphere along with some coolness in the air, individuals immunities and viral development are tested as the sources of NoV spreading. Norovirus may live strongly in winter with over half of infections occurring in the winter days (Ahmed et al. 2013; Din and Li 2021). Noroviruses lies winter time or seasonal in temperature weather same to several other respiration and gastro-small viruses. But, Norovirus infection disease is definitely not regular. Opposite of Rotavirus, the Norovirus highest value often transfer by calendar weeks or years between different weathers (Rohayem 2009; Marshall and Bruggink 2011). Humans having different ages can be infectious and sick with Norovirus (Carmona-Vicente et al. 2015). One may infected from Norovirus illness again and again in life cycle due to several various kinds of Noroviruses (Gaythorpe et al. 2018). Infection with one kind of Norovirus may not safe you against other kinds (Khan et al. 2021). It is not impossible to make strong immunity to (safeness against) proper kinds. However, it is not found, how long immunities remains (Khan et al. 2018). It shows why several humans having different ages take said infection during Norovirus outbreaks (Hall et al. 2013). Also, if you are Susceptible to Norovirus Infection or not, it also determined in parts by your genes (Murata et al. 2007; Lai et al. 2013).
Related Knowledge Centers
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- Fecal–Oral Route
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- Hand Washing