Norovirus Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark : Norovirus Blog

Little green men running around at a Science-Fiction 
convention would not get that much notice, but when 
everybody turns green... Well, that's a problem.

Dozens of people attending the SciFi gathering in 
Madison, Wisconsin did turn a little green and health 
officials are not yet sure why.

About 50 people became ill and the cause remains a bit 
of a mystery, but it sure does sound like norovirus.
 
However, officials with Dane County and the Madison Public Health Department 
investigators say the ailment had symptoms similar to those of "stomach flu."

They think some attendees might have been exposed to the illness before the 
convention since they developed symptoms so soon after arriving. The sick ones
may have then infected others through personal contact and shared access to food.
The convention was at Madison's Concourse Hotel. The hotel has been thoroughly 
scrubbed since the illnesses were reported.

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Four thousand diarrhea cases in the central Anatolian city of Aksaray in Turkey will probably get the award for this season's largest outbreak of Norovirus. 

"A rash of diarrhea cases first appeared in the province on May 13, and health experts determined that the outbreak stemmed from contaminated water," Today's Zaman, a Turkish news publication, reports.

It went on to say:

Turan Buzgan, a deputy undersecretary at the Health Ministry, said the ministry was investigating whether there was norovirus in the samples taken from the city's water system.

Noroviruses are transmitted by fecally contaminated food or water and by person-to-person contact and causes approximately 90 percent of epidemic non-bacterial outbreaks of gastroenteritis around the world. "The results of our studies rely on scientific data. They are based on epidemiological studies and laboratory analysis. Since what the Health Ministry says is based on scientific evidence, it is not right to say the opposite," said Buzgan.

He also stated that the ministry had been closely monitoring the diarrhea cases in the city since they broke out and sent an expert health team to the region.

Look here for the rest of Today's Zaman story.

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You have to love Norovirus.   It goes from Five Star Hotels to fancy venues like San Francisco's Moscone Center before it lands on the simple Salem Mission, Oregon's Capital City's 34-bed homeless center on Mission Street.

Residents and staff at Salem Mission caught the highly contagious virus last week, Oregon health officials say.  About 20 people were sick last Thursday and Friday with both vomiting and diarrhea.

The Mission is being cleaned by sanitizing surfaces with bleach and water; and replacing all linens and bedding.   Anyone coming or going at the Mission will now be required to use hand sanitizers.

No common food source for the outbreak  is known.    There's a Salem News Online story here.

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Sun Microsystems urged people to "Catch the Buzz" at JavaOne.  By the time "Sun Fellow" James Gosling was wrapping up the annual open source event at San Francisco's famed Moscone Center, more than 70 people who attended JavaOne were sick with norovirus.

It was probably the only time when San Francisco is glad to see a Silicon Valley company stop spending its money and go home.    With another group moving into Moscone this week,  San Francisco is left dealing the the nasty aftermath of a norovirus outbreak.  Reports the San Francisco Chronicle:

The source of the virus has not yet been identified, but generally the norovirus is passed when an infected person spreads microbes either by preparing food or sharing plates or utensils, said Jim Soos, assistant director of policy and planning at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Public health officials are working with convention center organizers to make cleaning recommendations and to confirm the cause of the illness, according to a bulletin issued by the health department.

The Moscone Center consists of more than 2 million square feet of building area. On Friday it hosted the last day of the JavaOne Conference, and an event next week is going ahead as scheduled, Perry said.

The SF Chronicle story can be located here.

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As we said in our last post, we always do appreciate local media doing follow-up stories, especially when it involves an outbreak. The Akron Beacon Journal is staying on the norovirus outbreak at the Kent, Ohio Chipotle Mexican Grill. More than 400 Chipotle customers got sick. The Ohio newspaper spoke to both City Health Commissioner John Ferlito and the spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health. 'It was definitely a norovirus outbreak,'' Ferlito said Monday. ''It looks like people ingested it through the food. How it got into the food, I can't ascertain at this moment.'' Results of the food tests -- made available Monday by the state health department -- came up negative for fecal coliform, a bacteria often found in human waste, Ferlito said. Ohio Department of Health spokesman Kristopher Weiss said there is no specific test for norovirus in food. But, he said, ''if we were to find fecal coliforms, it would be indicative of fecal contamination, which can lead to norovirus and other illnesses.'' Test also were negative for four other types of bacteria linked to gastrointestinal illnesses: salmonella, staphyloenterotoxin, shigella and E.coli. Ferlito said it remains unclear whether the food was contaminated in Kent or before it got to the restaurant

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