Can You Get the Norovirus Again
Norovirus is the well-nigh common cause of the stomach misery nosotros call food poisoning. iStockphoto hide caption
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Norovirus is the most mutual cause of the stomach misery we call food poisoning.
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The misery began around 4:thirty a.thou. with the sound of my 7-year-erstwhile thumping into the hallway. He had already been upward once, lament of a stomachache. This fourth dimension, I scrambled out of bed and shushed him so he wouldn't wake upward his ii-year-quondam brother. He looked at me and moaned. Then he puked all over the floor.
For the next couple of hours, he ran to the bathroom to vomit every xx or xxx minutes. In between, I lay in bed next to him, encouraging him to rest.
"Poor Zach," I thought every bit he catnapped, simultaneously considering the other downsides. We were bound to be cranky afterward starting the 24-hour interval so early on. As well, he conspicuously wasn't going to school. Would I exist able to meet a borderline while disposed to him?
So came the beginning of my own personal hell. Around half dozen:xxx, I rushed to the bath for the beginning of what would become hours of violent upheaval. I hadn't thrown upward since I was effectually Zach'south age, during a influenza and then horrific that I thought I'd since suppressed the power to vomit. But no.
Whatsoever had gotten into us wanted out, and information technology favored both ends equally. Each time I entered the bathroom, I establish information technology difficult to determine if I should sit down on the toilet or lean over it.
Past about 9 a.m., Zach had relocated to the living room, where he watched Lego Star Wars cartoons, occasionally sitting up to puke in a pot. He was very casual virtually the whole thing. I stayed upstairs, curled upwards in bed, too weak to movement, too worried to stray far from the bathroom, as well zonked even to read.
As I stared out the window at a squirrel hopping effortlessly through the leafless branches of a tree across the street, I wondered: What had I done to deserve this?
Determined to get to the source of my despair so I could prevent it from always happening again, I chosen Kellogg Schwab, an environmental microbiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Wellness. He offered a long listing of pathogens that can cause gastroenteritis — the technical term for the diarrhea, airsickness, stomach cramps and other symptoms oft described as "tum flu."
His list included protozoa such every bit giardia, too every bit toxins produced by bacteria that regularly get into rice. He rattled off common varieties of foodborne leaner that sicken one in six Americans every year. Amongst them: Salmonella, Campylobacter and Eastward. coli, which is implicated in an outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants. (A more than contempo outbreak from a Chipotle in Boston appears to have been caused by norovirus, according to NPR'south Dan Charles.)
Nosotros hadn't eaten at Chipotle, but contaminated food was i of my first theories, a hypothesis I developed non long afterwards the "just shoot me" phase of my illness had ended effectually apex. Only Zach and I had eaten the enchilada pie I'd made for dinner the nighttime before. And nosotros had fallen ill at the same time. I was pretty certain I had discovered the smoking gun of our gruesome mystery.
Every bit presently as I had enough energy the next morn, I opened the refrigerator and took action. Out went all leftovers (enchilada pie offset), everything in the vegetable drawer and any sauce that had been open for more three days. I even eyed the bunny graham crackers and wondered if bad germs could survive there, likewise. I suspected my behavior might be irrational, but it felt good to take command over an invisible threat that could exist lurking anywhere.
Soon, though, came a new clue that cast doubt on my smoking enchilada. The next dark, my husband, Gabe, fell ill. "I'm dying," he texted me from the bath floor, where I found him lying effectually midnight. His peel was greyness. He couldn't sit upwardly. He could barely motility. Ii days afterwards, we learned of two more cases: Zach's teacher and Gabe'due south colleague.
Without stool samples to cultivate for bacteria or analyze for pathogenic Deoxyribonucleic acid or RNA, it'southward impossible to know for sure what the culprit was, Schwab cautioned. But, he said, many aspects of our experience are consistent with the dreaded and remarkably common norovirus. Co-ordinate to the Centers for Disease Command and Prevention, norovirus strikes virtually 20 million Americans every year. By comparison, Campylobacter affects 1.3 1000000 people and Salmonella infects another meg. Those are the two most mutual bacterial causes of gastroenteritis.
Not everyone is as lucky equally we were. Norovirus sends tens of thousands of people to the infirmary each year and kills as many as 800. Overall, estimates the CDC, foodborne illnesses kill virtually iii,000 Americans annually.
Notoriously affiliated with prowl-ship outbreaks, noroviruses (and in that location are 150 strains) cause half of all nutrient-related outbreaks, according to the CDC. Only they can also move among victims inside about eight to 48 hours of contact with surfaces, food or objects contaminated by a sick person'due south vomit or stool. Symptoms strike rapidly, often with projectile airsickness that doesn't ever wait for one's arrival in the bathroom.
One time in the throes of a norovirus infection, you can't do much only ride it out and try to stay hydrated. (If you lot're immunocompromised, have a chronic condition or develop severe aridity, Schwab said, it'southward best to get medical assistance). Mercifully, the worst is usually over inside a solar day or two. Other forms of foodborne illness can take longer to incubate and terminal much longer.
But what I actually wanted to know, at least the adjacent solar day, was how to avoid getting it over again — and how to proceed it away from my 2-year old, Ben, who still hasn't contracted it still. It can seem hopeless.
Victims shed the virus both before and after they have symptoms. Information technology tin can stick around on surfaces for weeks. In one study, Schwab found that noroviruses can even persist in carpets and so become aerosolized when vacuumed, leading to infection through inhalation. Affliction can come with exposure to as few every bit ten private viruses. Even getting it in one case fails to protect you lot from getting it once more and over again.
"It is one of the most infectious microorganisms known to humans," Schwab said, though at least he was sympathetic about it. "I'm sorry you were ill."
And still, many mysteries remain. Did the illness kickoff with contaminated food at all, or did someone bring it dwelling from schoolhouse or work? Why did Zach and I get it at the aforementioned fourth dimension? And why hasn't Ben come up downward with information technology, even though he touches everything, sucks his thumb and regularly crawls on the floor, pretending he's a puppy?
For now, experts say, the all-time advice for reducing chance is simple: Wash your easily with soap and water, especially later going to the bathroom or before preparing food. Alcohol-based mitt sanitizers don't piece of work too against this nasty affliction. Only bleach does, and the CDC recommends using it to make clean surfaces if norovirus strikes your home.
It's sort of boring advice but better than nothing. Afterwards spraying down my own bathroom and kitchen, I took a moment to think good thoughts about the researchers who met before this year to talk near developing a norovirus vaccine. My queasy family unit and I hope they figure it out — and soon.
Emily Sohn is a freelance journalist in Minneapolis who writes regularly about health and science for Nature, the Washington Postal service, Discovery News and others. More at www.tidepoolsinc.com.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/12/09/458926533/when-norovirus-came-to-dinner-my-family-felt-the-pain