Infectious Disease Unit: Intestinal Germs on the Warpath

You might want to buy enough Purell to bathe in after you read this. Local media is reporting on an "intestinal germ" sweeping the area and sending up to 3,700 people to Boston emergency rooms.

The Globe said that symptoms include vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea. (Perhaps the symptoms inspired the Globe's borderline-inappropriate headline – "Intestinal Germ Leaves Trail of Misery.")

Authorities are blaming the illness not on the usual suspects like tainted spinach or Taco Bell but on norovirus, which spreads easily. How can we avoid this unpleasant intestinal germ?

The CDC recommends keeping your hands scrupulously clean and being especially careful if your daily work or life (nursing, childcare) involves close contact. Here are some other tips straight from the CDC:

--Frequently wash your hands, especially after toilet visits and changing diapers and before eating or preparing food.
--Carefully wash fruits and vegetables, and steam oysters before eating them.
--Thoroughly clean and disinfect contaminated surfaces immediately after an episode of illness by using a bleach-based household cleaner.
--Immediately remove and wash clothing or linens that may be contaminated with virus after an episode of illness (use hot water and soap).
--Flush or discard any vomitus and/or stool in the toilet and make sure that the surrounding area is kept clean.

In short, if you are unlucky enough to catch norovirus, be careful cleaning up after yourself (Bostonist is trying to be as tasteful as the CDC) because you're still contagious at least three days after recovery.

Image of Slimer from Ghostbusters from Wikipedia. Bostonist doesn't know what a norovirus germ might look like, but it probably looks like Slimer in spirit..