50 pupils infected with norovirus

50 pupils and some teachers got infected with Norovirus during a school trip in Lower Saxony.

(Uelzen / Göttingen) During a school trip about 50 students and a few teachers became infected with Norovirus. The class trip of the students of a comprehensive school from Bovenden near Göttingen took place in the Lower Saxony Lüneburg Heath. Eleven children Children were so ill that they need to be hospitalized in hospital.

During a school trip in Lower Saxony, around 50 students and teachers from the Bovenden Comprehensive School became infected with Norovirus. The head of the public health department Uelzen has since confirmed numerous media reports. On the class trip, a total of 135 students in the sixth class took part in a school trip to the youth hostel in Uelzen. As the health authorities suspect, one of the children has already brought the dangerous virus. Because first, the typical noro-virus symptoms have shown in a child and then be on a variety of other students „jumped over“. The sick students have since suffered from severe vomiting, sudden diarrhea and nausea. These complaints suggest that this is a norovirus infection. A concrete proof is still pending and is expected for the coming days.

Meanwhile, the school trip was canceled because of the diseases. Some parents already picked up their children themselves, others were taken by bus back to their hometown. However, healthy and sick children were transported on the same buses, as the spokeswoman Susanne Strätz of the Lower Saxony Provincial School Board announced.

Three students of inpatient treated children have since been released from hospital and are on their return journey. According to the health authorities, another eight children are expected to be treated in the clinic until Friday. The affected youth hostel in Uelzen is currently being intensively cleaned and disinfected, so that a further risk of infection can be excluded, as it was said. Thereafter, there should be no more concerns about staying at the hostel.

As a further precaution, the Bovender School Center was closed until Friday. This was a pure precautionary measure of the school and no order of the Göttingen health department, as the headmaster Wilhelm Reinhard Wienecke stressed.

Noroviruses cause symptoms such as vomiting and severe diarrhea (gastroenteritis). Noro virus infection leads to significant fluid loss (dehydration) and fluctuations in the electrolyte balance. The disease is especially dangerous for older patients and children, because the persistent strong diarrhea removes a lot of fluid from the body. Therefore, it is important to balance the fluid balance of the body with infusions and the addition of electrolytes. It is therefore important to take severe diarrhea seriously and consult a doctor. Worldwide, according to WHO, about 300 million people get this type of gastrointestinal infection. In most cases, the disease clears after 2 to 3 days.

An occurrence of norovirus infections is not unusual. Again and again it happens that people get infected. In most cases, the symptoms are very pronounced at the beginning, but after no later than 2 to 4 days after. It is important that patients are provided with sufficient fluid, otherwise acute fluid deficiency may occur. This can sometimes lead to life-threatening situations. Timely medical care is extremely important for this reason. (sb, 30.09.2010)

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