We are entering the “winter vomiting disease” season. Winter vomiting disease is caused by norovirus
The infection comes on very quickly. One minute you feel fine, the next you are vomiting and have diarrhoea. The symptoms are unpleasant but don’t last for too long and within 12-48 hours most people feel better. For some patients, the elderly for example, the infection can be more serious.
The virus can be very easily spread. When a person with norovirus vomits, they can release many millions of infectious particles into the air. Some of these are particles are very small which means that they can remain suspended in the air for prolonged periods. Diarrhoeal bowel motions are also highly infectious.
Norovirus can spread very quickly in hospitals and the only effective control measure we have is to close an affected ward to new admissions until the outbreak has run its course. Hospitals are busier over the winter months than at other times of the year and closing wards because of outbreaks of winter vomiting disease can cause major problems.
Unless their visit is very urgent we ask people not to visit their friends or relatives in hospital if they have diarrhoea or vomiting and to delay their visit for at least 48 hours after their symptoms have settled as resolved as infectious virus is still present in the stools for a few days after diarrhoea has stopped.
Norovirus picture courtesy of the Public Health Image Library
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