Winter Vomiting Virus

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Winter Vomiting Virus is a very highly contagious gastrointestinal infection, which (as the name suggests) occurs mainly in the winter months.

1 Symptoms
2 Contagion
3 Epidemics
4 External links

[edit] Symptoms

The main symptoms are:

Nausea
Violent Vomiting (even when stomach is empty)

Other Symptoms include:

Diarrohea
Abdominal pain (stomach may feel acidic)
Headache
Fever
Tiredness

UK NHS factsheet (pdf)

[edit] Contagion

The virus is principally spread via the fecal matter and vomit droplets of infected people. It can spread through bodily contact with infected matter, can spread via the air (vomit and fecal droplets). It also spread via the consumption of food products handled by infected food handlers, and consumption of undercooked food.

Contamination with the virus can be very easily avoided by taking basic hygiene procedures. Including hand washing after going to the toilet, cooking all food thoroughly, and ensuring hands are washed before and after preparing and cooking food. Also, those with Winter Vomiting Disease must not prepare food for anyone other than themselves.

[edit] Epidemics

These occur fairly frequently, mainly in close contact environments such as schools, colleges, nurseries and offices. It can cause attendance to slip to what in other circumstances would be classed as unacceptable levels (less than half attendance for example), and can even cause institutions to close down [1][2]