Hospital gives 'stay away' warning

Waikato Hospital is urging people with minor illnesses to stay away after 12 of its patients and a staff member contracted the highly-contagious norovirus.

Infection control clinical nurse manager Vicki Parry said one of the hospital's main medical wards was closed for all admissions and transfers to other hospitals after a dozen of its 16 patients contracted the virus.

The outbreak was confirmed in Ward 5 on Tuesday when a patient's specimen was sent to an ESR laboratory and returned a positive result for the virus.

"What alerted us was we had a lot of patients in a very short time come down with vomiting and diarrhoea in the ward," said Ms Parry.

"You could tell the vomiting and diarrhoea had nothing to do with the reasons why they were in hospital in the first place."

Norovirus is a common but highly-transmissible viral infection which often occurs in outbreaks.

Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, muscle aches, headache, tiredness, and mild fever and usually begin between 24 to 28 hours after the virus enters the body.

The illness normally lasts a couple of days.

Ms Parry said staff in the ward were wearing masks, aprons and gloves.

The hospital has also set up strict procedures to ensure hygiene and cleanliness in the ward was maintained.

She said no patient had showed signs of the illness since Wednesday afternoon.

"We assess the situation every 24 hours," she said. "We need to have no new cases for 48 hours before we can say things are okay."

The Waikato District Health Board yesterday urged the public to stay away from the hospital if they had stomach complaints, colds or mild flu and asked GPs and rest homes to treat patients at home.

"We are saying if people have minor illnesses like a cold they really shouldn't come and visit the hospital," said the board's spokeswoman, Mary Anne Gill.

Last August, Dunedin Hospital imposed strict controls after it had waves of norovirus outbreaks.

NOROVIRUS

* Norovirus is also referred to as viral gastroenteritis, winter vomiting disease and 24-hour tummy bug.

* It can be spread directly from person to person by hand-mouth spread, or indirectly via droplet transmission and contact with contaminated surfaces.

* Symptoms usually develop within two days of exposure to the virus, and include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, muscle aches, headache, tiredness, and mild fever.

* The disease usually resolves itself in one to two days, but young children and the elderly and ill people may be more severely affected.

* Personal hygiene, including handwashing after going to the toilet, changing nappies and before preparing food, is essential.

Source: Waikato District Health Board