Getting to Know Noro
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I teach a lot of food safety to food service personnel and I always try to learn more to share with my classes. So, I recently participated in a webinar conducted by the Partnership for Food Safety Education. The topic was “Clean Starts Here: Responding to Norovirus.”
The objectives of this webinar was to share some of the science about Norovirus and offer some teaching ideas for food safety educators. The ultimate goal is to reduce the number of Norovirus infections across the United States.
In case you haven’t heard of it, Norovirus (frequently just called Noro) is one of the most common of all foodborne illnesses. About 46% of all food related illnesses are attributed to Noro. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that there are usually 19-26 million cases of Noro each year between November and April. There is a new epidemic strain circulating in the United States right now.
Noro is frequently spread in locations where people are close together such as schools, dorms, day care centers, nursing homes and cruise ships. As with all foodborne illnesses—young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems are most likely to develop and have more severe symptoms. Ill food service workers most commonly contribute to Norovirus outbreaks.
Symptoms? Noro has been called the “two bucket” illness because it causes both vomiting and diarrhea. Other symptoms include fever, headache and body aches. People start exhibiting symptoms 12-48 hours after they are exposed to the virus and it usually lasts 1-3 days. Antibiotics will not cure or lessen the symptoms of Noro.
While a person may only be symptomatic with Noro for a few days, they can shed the virus for a long time and make others sick. Hand washing is the best defense. Hand sanitizers don’t work well on Noro.
It is spread through what is called the fecal/oral route. Simply this means contaminated poop gets in someone’s mouth. It can also be spread in vomit. You don’t get Noro from breathing it in, it has to get in your stomach. The primary way it gets there is on food from dirty hands.
Another way that it can spread is on surfaces. This is a weird topic to discuss, but both diarrhea and vomit can become aerosolized. This means it gets into the air and has a fairly large “splash zone” and can spread as far as 25-30 feet. Norovirus particles that have landed on a surface are hard to destroy. They can live on surfaces (in that splash zone) for a long time. Cleaning and sanitizing frequently touched surfaces is one way to help prevent Norovirus from spreading.
Virus particles may be on surfaces and you don’t know you’ve touched it and then you put your hands in your mouth or on food and the virus cells are headed toward your stomach. Once the virus enters the body and gets to the stomach, the intestines become inflamed and this results in diarrhea and vomiting.
Diarrhea and vomit situations happen frequently in public settings like restaurants and other food service settings. This is why these locations are now required to have a “vomit and diarrhea clean-up” plan and special cleaning kits for these occurrences. Brunswick County Environmental Health has a sample clean-up plan on their website.
If someone in your home has symptoms of Norovirus, take care when cleaning diarrhea, vomit and bathrooms where they have been ill. Remember the splash zone. Bleach is the only disinfectant than can completely eliminate Noro virus from surfaces. The bleach needs to be a very strong concentration (3/4 cup bleach to one gallon of water). Many common disinfecting wipes do not kill Norovirus on surfaces. When cleaning it up, be sure to protect yourself by wearing a face mask and gloves and washing your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water after cleaning.
If you’re really interested in this topic you can watch the recording of this webinar on the Partnership for Food Safety Education on their website. They also have other food safety resources for consumers, writers, food service and educators.
The key to preventing getting infected or spreading the Norovirus is to stay home when sick and wash your hands often.
Syracuse is a Family and Consumer Science team member at the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service’s Brunswick County Center. She can be reached at 910-253-2610 or at clsyracu@ncsu.edu