With the recent and ongoing investigation into the Norovirus outbreak at the Rye Town Hilton that sickened hundreds of people, the source still remains a mystery. Here are some facts regarding Norovirus:
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1) It is a viral infection that has an onset time of one to two days and the sickness can last 1 to 3 days.
2) It is the #1 agent of foodborne and waterborne illness in the United States.
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3) Viruses require a living host to multiply; they do not replicate in food and can survive on an environmental surface such as a door knob.
4) Only a few viral particles can cause illness.
5) Norovirus can be transferred from person to person very easily (especially in an enclosed area), from a person to a food, from one food to another or from contaminated water.
6) Controlling the spread of Norovirus is through proper handwashing, eliminating bare hand contact with ready-to-eat foods, proper separation of raw and ready-to-eat foods and most importantly…exclusion of infected food workers from preparing or serving food.
With that being said, it is very difficult to investigate the source of any foodborne illness outbreak. In this case at least the stool samples from the unfortunate victims implicated Norovirus. Onset time, symptoms, health status, type of food, location and how many people infected all have to be taken into consideration when looking for the root cause.
Did a food service worker infected with Norovirus prepare or serve food at the Rye town Hilton? Was that individual a hotel employee or did the hotel use a contracted staffing agency to help cater the suspected event? Either way, people who are diagnosed with one of “The Big 5 Pathogens” (Hepatitis A, E-Coli, Shigella, Salmonella or Norovirus) should not be handling food. Was anyone privy in the kitchen to someone running to the bathroom to vomit, paint the toilet bowl or have stomach pains and headache? Those are all obvious tell-tale symptoms. Guess what? I also hope the health inspectors are taking a hard look at the food as well. Norovirus has been documented to survive the freezing process. Frozen mussel meat from Korea and frozen strawberries from China have gotten innocent people, including children, sick from thousands of miles away.
I wish the Westchester County Department of Health good luck in the epidemiological investigation. It will be interesting to see how this situation was caused, the ramifications and hopefully foodservice establishments can learn a valuable lesson from it.
