Hundreds sickened at two campuses, thousands of miles apart

Many college students rely on campus dining for a majority of their meals, but what does a university do when a disease is traveling through campus, and the dining rooms may be the source?

Both the University of Southern California and Georgetown University were hit by cases of norovirus in early October. At USC, the gastrointestinal virus sickened 330 students and 215 at Georgetown fell ill from the same virus. Norovirus causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration, with symptoms that last one to two days and is rarely fatal. It’s a self-limiting disease because the outbreak usually ends on its own, but secondary outbreaks are common. A sick or recently recovered patient can spread the virus up to 14 days after becoming sick, with the largest risk in the first 72 hours, according to the Los Angeles Department of Public Health.

At Georgetown, the school became aware of the virus outbreak Oct. 2, and by Oct. 8 no more cases were appearing, and at USC illnesses began manifesting Oct. 5 and had run it’s course by Oct. 11.

The investigation into the source of the contamination was still ongoing weeks later, and while the District of Columbia’s Department of Health believed the source of the Georgetown outbreak to be an individual, it hadn’t ruled out contaminated food. Identifying an outbreak as it’s occurring and not days later is the first step to finding the source. The emergency preparedness plan that Georgetown has in place, plus a network of interconnected medical services eliminated any delay and let school officials know something was going on right away.

What helped identify the virus so quickly was a campus organization called the Georgetown Emergency Medical Response Service – GERMS. Anyone on campus can dial 7-HELP to be connected to the service, which is run by undergraduate volunteers with emergency medical training and has two ambulances. GERMS operates 24 hours a day, but during the outbreak the additional volunteers were called in to help as most of the sick students called in to report illnesses.

The most common food source for the norovirus is in shellfish and salad ingredients. The virus is naturally occurring in undercooked oysters and clams, but transmission from other foods typically involves a sick food handler. Although there’s no quick test for norovirus in food, the District of Columbia Department of Health went ahead and tested the food supply for salmonella, E. coli and shigella. Those tests came back negative, and polymerase chain reaction tests on samples from sick individuals confirmed the outbreak was the result of norovirus.

Many of the cases at Georgetown had eaten in O’Donovan Hall, a dormitory on campus. The dining facility in that building was immediately shut down and thoroughly sanitized. Department of Health officials tested the cafeteria and cleared it to reopen Oct. 7, and it resumed limited operation the following day with grab-and-go meals prepared on-site by university staff and no student workers.

Georgetown’s emergency preparation plans paid off during the outbreak, helping to spread information on campus and prevent further infections. Upon learning of the outbreak, the university held a press conference with the director of the Department of Health to inform students of ways to avoid norovirus illness and explained its five-part plan to address the situation.

1. The university sent a campus-wide email to the staff and students encouraging handwashing and good hygiene. The campus emergency preparedness Web site, http://preparedness.georgetown.edu, was appropriated to provide all the latest information in one place for students and their families. The school passed out thousands of personal hand sanitizers and encouraged their use. Anyone who was sick was asked to avoid person-to-person contact and to go see a doctor.

2. Residence halls and high-traffic areas, including fitness and student centers, were aggressively cleaned. Contact surfaces – handrails, doorknobs, elevator buttons and bathroom fixtures – were thoroughly sanitized.

3. Staff in residence halls went door-to-door to locate sick students. This step ensured every illness was reported, sick individuals received care and it also provided more information on the distribution pattern of the virus.

4. The university encouraged students to thoroughly recover before returning to class by granting excused absences. A telephone hotline was set up so parents could call and check in on the situation.

5. O’Donovan Hall, where most students who got sick ate, was closed for sanitization and not reopened until cleared by the health department.

“I certainly need to applaud Georgetown University for its approach to this particular issue as we’ve worked with them closely over the last couple of days,” said Pierre Vigilance, director of the District of Columbia Department of Health.


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