A new paper in Clinical Infectious Diseases suggests that aerosols and the airborne/inhalation route could transmit Norovirus, demonstrating that Norovirus genomes could be detected in air samples inside and outside of rooms during outbreaks. The authors suggest that a healthcare worker could inhale up to 60 copies of virus during a 5-minute stay in a ‘symptomatic’ patient’s room. These particles, it is suggested, are available then to be swallowed.

So, given the fact that I still have some staff left in the hospital when Norovirus comes to call I’m thinking either this virus has a larger infectious dose than we think or the assumptions are not quite right. There was no linkage with the time lapse from the symptomatic ‘event’ apart from this was within 24 hr. of the sampling or with the type of event, or putting it bluntly, which end of the body the virus was ejected from the body from. Presumably the top end is a more effective disperser of viral particles than the lower end (depending on how sharply the sheets are pulled back..) and it would be interesting to see the effect of frequency of symptoms. Continue reading →