Diseases: Massive deadly disease outbreak in Midwest

A major outbreak of norovirus has been traced to a donut shop in northwest Ohio, and that shop is about to reopen after being closed for days.

A donut shop at the center of a massive norovirus outbreak in northwest Ohio is about to reopen, but not before more than 200 fell ill. The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department tracked the source of the potentially deadly disease to Mama C’s Donuts in Maumee, and a total of 214 are believed to have fallen ill from norovirus.

Authorities think that those who ate at the store between Friday and Monday were most likely to have fallen ill, and the disease may have spread to a neighboring county. However, Mama C’s employees have cleaned the restaurant from top to bottom and they are now expected to reopen soon.

 

Norovirus is a nasty illness that causes inflammation of the stomach and intestines. While most people heal in a few days, it can prove fatal for the elderly, the young, and those with compromised immune systems.

The health department got three positives after running some tests at Mama C’s.

“I was texted Sunday morning about 2 a.m. or so that there was something going on. Monday morning, we came in and started the investigation and found out that at this point in time the investigation is looking to Mama C’s,” said Health Commissioner Eric Zgodinski, according to a CBS News report.

One Maumee resident named Kelly Walkup was reportedly stunned by the news.

“I was a little surprised, and kind of scared because we had just gone to eat donuts there the day before the news came out that the virus had hit. No one got sick, so we were pretty surprised,” Walkup said.

An employee told local station 13abc that ownership was sorry.

“Like the Health Department said, some customer could be sick and touch the counter,” the employee said according to the 13abc report. “Right now, we are in the process of deep cleaning. We feel so, so sorry for everything that happened. That’s why we volunteered to close down to deep clean the story. We will reopen when everything is back to normal and the health department does an inspection. Thank you so much to all of our valued customers. We didn’t want this to happen.”

The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia describing Norovirus:

Norovirus, sometimes referred to as the winter vomiting bug in the UK and Ireland, is the most common cause of viral gastroenteritis in humans. It affects people of all ages.[1] The virus is transmitted by fecally contaminated food or water, by person-to-person contact,[2] and via aerosolization of vomited virus and subsequent contamination of surfaces.[3] Annually, norovirus is associated with 906,000 outpatient visits in industrialized countries, with 64,200 inpatient hospitalizations. In developing countries, it is associated with 1.1 million hospitalizations, with an estimated 218,000 deaths.[4]

Norovirus infection is characterized by nausea, vomiting, watery diarrhea, abdominal pain, and in some cases, loss of taste. A person usually develops symptoms of gastroenteritis 12 to 48 hours after being exposed to norovirus.[5] General lethargy, weakness, muscle aches, headaches, and low-grade fevers may occur. The disease is usually self-limiting, and severe illness is rare. Although having norovirus can be unpleasant, it is not usually dangerous and most who contract it make a full recovery within two to three days.[6] On surfaces, norovirus is rapidly inactivated by either sufficient heating or by chlorine-based disinfectants and polyquaternary amines, but the virus is less susceptible to alcohols and detergents.[7]

After infection, immunity to the same strain of the virus – the genotype – protects against reinfection for between 4.1 (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.2–5.1) to 8.7 (95% CI 6.8–11.3) years.[8] This immunity does not fully protect against infection with the other diverse genotypes of the virus.[8]

Outbreaks of norovirus infection often occur in closed or semiclosed communities, such as long-term care facilities, overnight camps, hospitals, schools, prisons, clubs, dormitories, and cruise ships, where the infection spreads very rapidly either by person-to-person transmission or through contaminated food.[9] Many norovirus outbreaks have been traced to food that was handled by one infected person.[10]

The genus name Norovirus is derived from Norwalk virus, the only species of the genus. The species causes approximately 90% of epidemic nonbacterial outbreaks of gastroenteritis around the world,[11] and may be responsible for 50% of all foodborne outbreaks of gastroenteritis in the United States.[12][13]