07.nov.08
New York Times
Jennifer 8. Lee
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/another-year-another-bout-of-stomach-flu/
A highly contagious stomach virus is circulating in New York City, pushing emergency room visits for vomiting and diarrhea up 19 percent in the last two weeks to 400 per day, the city?s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported on Friday.
The city?s surveillance system has identified the contagion as the norovirus, also known as Norwalk virus. Named for Norwalk, Ohio, the site of a severe outbreak of vomiting, nausea and diarrhea among schoolchildren in the late 1960s, the norovirus is a small, spherical, highly contagious virus that attacks the digestive system. Its sour suite of symptoms is often referred to as ?stomach flu,? but norovirus infection is distinct from the flu, which is caused by the influenza virus and attacks not the gut but the lungs. Norovirus peaks in the fall and winter months, and last year, the increase occurred in December.