http://goo.gl/JVgPw
Denise Grady writes:
"Deaths from the infections more than doubled from 1999 to 2007, to more than 17,000 a year from 7,000 a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Of those who died, 83 percent were over age 65.
Two thirds of the deaths were caused by a bacterium, Clostridium difficile, which people often contract in hospitals and nursing homes, particularly when they have been taking antibiotics. The bacteria have grown increasingly virulent and resistant to treatment in recent years.
But researchers were surprised to discover that the second leading cause of death from this type of illness was the norovirus. It causes a highly contagious infection, sometimes called winter vomiting illness, that can spread rapidly on cruise ships and in prisons, dormitories and hospitals."
But she misses one area that is going to be BIG problem: schools. The trend toward health-lunch programs is bringing more fresh, uncooked foods into lunchrooms. And kids are getting to self-serve the foods. It's just a matter of time before there's a major story about a school having to deal with an outbreak of norovirus. If you think the coverage of cruise ship outbreaks is bad, wait until it hits home.
When school lunch ladies cooked, food regulations set temperatures that minimized the risks of pathogens. Now, that safety standard has been reduced. What will be interesting is the public policy response to protecting the kids from the virus. The simplest way would be that kids have to wear latex gloves at lunch. Ha, ha, ha. Not going to happen. The response more likely will be new standards and practices requiring some form of hand sanitation -- maybe UV light and ozone combination -- before going to the salad bar. There also will have to be new rules for handling the vomit and other goo if someone gets sick in the cafeteria. It's going to cost a bunch to do and monitor. One option is do nothing since it's rarely fatal to healthy people older then 5 and younger than 65.
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