Norovirus not just for Georgetown

Norovirus continues to work its porcelain magic.

After striking  175 Georgetown students – there was vomiting in the emergency waiting rooms and residence hallways, but at least they got Powerade – something that sure sounded like norovirus sickened 75 University of Southern California students.

The campus community was alerted early Saturday with a blast of e-mail and cell phone text messages and officials stressed that ill students should not attend Saturday evening’s football game between the USC Trojans and Oregon.

Several students and staff at a private school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, got sick during lunch on Friday and the health department suspects watermelon in a fruit salad based on what the individuals ate. The health department took samples, and will test them for foodborne illnesses.

And the Washoe District Health Department in Nevada is reminding people to use "effective handwashing procedures" following a rise of gastrointestinal illnesses.

Here’s another norovirus infosheet from the past.


 

One dead, 11 sickened in Oklahoma E. coli outbreak

The Tulsa World is reporting that one person died and 11 others are suffering from illnesses, possibly related to E. coli, and remain hospitalized.

Leslea Bennett-Webb, communications director for the Oklahoma Department of Health, confirmed at least 10 people were taken to the hospital after eating at a restaurant in Locust Grove, and that between 12 to 20 more people in Beggs, Pryor and Bixby were treated at various Northeast Oklahoma hospitals with similar symptoms this past week.

The story says these illnesses are a very severe and bloody form of diarrhea.