Norwalk

  • Posted: May 31st, 2009 - 7:52am by Amy Hubbell

    From Katie Filion on assignment in New Zealand:

    I have virtually no athletic capabilities, but during my elementary school days I was quite the track star. OK, maybe not a star, but I was good enough to make the track and field team.  I remember winning a few races, but usually a day at the track resulted in an embarrassing sunburn. Students at Arden Elementary school in British Columbia weren’t so lucky, with more than one hundred students sent home from the track meet with Norwalk-like virus, reports Comox Valley Echo.

    Dr. Jordan Tinney, superintendent of the school said the health department was contacted and the symptoms are consistent with Norwalk. The virus affected no other schools at the track meet.

    Dr. Charmine Enns, Comox Valley medical health officer, said,

     "Norwalk or Norovirus is ubiquitous. It's in all of our communities. It's easily transmitted because people have very little warning that they're going to get sick."

    Enns stressed that gastro-intestinal illnesses of any type could be thwarted with good hygiene, especially hand washing.

    While lab diagnosis had not been sought out, Enns said she was confident the students had been struck with Norwalk.

    She explained,

    "Typically if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck. And it's quacking and walking like Norovirus."

    Arden Elementary has been thoroughly sanitized and nearly all students have returned to classes.



     

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    Norwalk, Track
  • Posted: September 8th, 2008 - 7:44pm by Doug Powell

    Xinhua News Agency reports,

    “A total of 141 people in Macao were food-poisoned after eating polluted raw oysters in local restaurants, the Special Administration Region's health authorities announced on Monday.

    “The food-poisoning outbreak was firstly reported on Aug. 28 when a number of people fell sick after eating raw oysters served in a buffet restaurant in the Venetian Macao Resort, and more cases were later reported in restaurants in the Sands Hotel, Golden Dragon Hotel and the Macao Tower, according to the SAR's Disease Control and Prevention Center of the Macao Health Bureau ( SSM).

    “The SSM said in its latest press release that eight new cases were reported on Monday, the victims of which dined in the four restaurants mentioned above and ate raw oysters, but it also confirmed that those victims have fully recovered from the illness.

    “The problem oysters served in the four restaurants came from the same supplier in Hong Kong, according to the SSM, which has ordered the four eateries to stop providing raw oysters at their buffets.

    “The food-poisoning was caused by Norwalk virus that was communicable through food, vomit, and excreta among human beings, said the SSM, adding that the victims comprised locals as well as tourists from Hong Kong and elsewhere.”

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