Related Subjects:
|Rotavirus
|Norovirus
|Diarrhoea (Children)
|Dehydration (Child)
|Viral Gastroenteritis (Adults and Children)
|Gastroenteritis in Children
🦠 The "winter vomiting bug" (Norovirus) is a highly infectious viral cause of gastroenteritis.
It usually causes vomiting and diarrhoea lasting 24–48 hours.
Though unpleasant, it is self-limiting in most healthy people, but outbreaks can be severe in hospitals, care homes, and cruise ships.
📖 About Norovirus
- 💥 Most common cause of acute infectious gastroenteritis in the UK and worldwide.
- 🔁 Highly contagious: Spread easily person-to-person, via contaminated food/water, or environmental surfaces.
- 👩⚕️ Healthcare setting outbreaks are a major challenge due to rapid transmission.
🧬 Aetiology
- RNA virus, part of the Calicivirus family.
- Outbreaks often occur in hospital wards, schools, cruise ships, military camps.
- 🍽️ Food handlers can transmit infection through poor hygiene.
- 👐 Virus is stable in the environment → survives on surfaces for days.
🤒 Clinical Features
- Sudden onset of vomiting (often projectile) and watery diarrhoea.
- Fever, headache, abdominal cramps, and malaise may accompany GI symptoms.
- ⏱️ Incubation: 24–48 hours.
- Most patients recover within 1–3 days, but dehydration is a risk in children, elderly, or immunocompromised.
🔬 Investigations
- 🧫 Stool PCR: Most sensitive and specific for confirming outbreaks.
- 🔍 Electron microscopy (EM): Detects viral particles, but less common now.
- ⚠️ Usually not required for individual community cases, but important in public health outbreaks.
💊 Management
- 💧 Supportive care: Oral rehydration (ORS), IV fluids if severe dehydration.
- 🚪 Isolation: Symptomatic patients should remain isolated until 48 hours after symptoms resolve.
- 🧴 Infection control: Clean contaminated surfaces with chlorine-based disinfectants (alcohol gels are less effective against norovirus).
- 🍲 Resume diet gradually once vomiting stops; avoid dairy/fatty foods initially.
⚠️ Public Health Note
- 🏥 In hospitals/care homes → strict infection control and closure of affected bays/wards may be required.
- 👩🍳 Food handlers should not return to work until 48 hours symptom-free.
📚 References
