For Norovirus, a mouthguard is important

Parents should protect themselves from children's norovirus infection

30/09/2012

At present, several thousand schoolchildren in Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia suffer from diarrhea and vomiting. How it came to the virus infection is still unclear. Parents should be careful in case of a Norovirus suspicion of their children, not to come into contact with the highly infectious vomit. Doctors advise wearing disposable gloves and a surgical mask.

Norovirus is highly contagious
„A norovirus infection primarily occurs as a vomiting disease, the vomited fluid is highly contagious“, explained the infectiologist of the University of Bonn, dr. Peter Walger. „Contact with vomit must therefore be reduced to zero.“ Parents should therefore wear a mask and disposable gloves when helping their child who has to vomit. In any case, parents should be careful not to come in contact with splashes, advises Walger. In addition, it is important to protect against infection, not to touch the hands on the face, as the viruses could otherwise enter the mouth through the mouth and trigger the disease there.

Walger also recommends the use of alcoholic disinfectant. This could be used to disinfect door handles, telephone receivers or other surfaces. Also germs on the hands could be killed with an alcohol-based agent.

Infection with norovirus is ongoing „short and hard“
Noroviruses are highly contagious and cause viral gastroenteritis in humans, a form of diarrheal diarrhea known colloquially as gastrointestinal influenza. They cause the majority of diarrheal diseases in humans that are not triggered by bacteria. Noroviruses are notifiable in Germany.

According to Walger, there is an infection with noroviruses „short and hard“ from. As a rule, the affected person has to struggle for about one to one and a half days with severe diarrhea and vomiting, then the vomiting and sometimes the diarrhea would disappear. Children are often already healthy after two days. „The disease is easy to manage without a doctor“, said Walger. If the person has an additional fever and complains of very severe illness symptoms, a visit to the doctor is required. In comorbidities such as diabetes, it would be necessary to consult a doctor anyway. For elderly and immunocompromised patients, Norovirus infection can be life-threatening.

In case of vomiting and diarrheal diseases, especially the loss of fluid is dangerous. Therefore, parents should always make sure that the children take enough water or tea. Walger also advises to compensate for the salt loss. There is currently no other therapy. Experts estimate that around 300 million people develop the gastrointestinal virus every year.

Norovirus detected in some children
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Health Ministry of Thuringia in Erfurt said on Friday afternoon that 27 of the examined samples detected the Norovirus. Still can „the ministry did not clearly determine that this was or was a cause“, so the speaker. In Thuringia alone, 887 cases were reported by Friday evening.

„It is currently too early to establish a cause for the massive outbreak of diarrheal diseases“, stressed a spokesman for the Saxon Ministry of Social Affairs. „Furthermore, we do not know what the cause is. In order to secure the results, further food and stool samples are currently being tested in the laboratory. In Saxony, 2800 acute diarrheal diseases in children were reported by the weekend. (Ag)

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Picture: Karl-Heinz Laube