An acute gastroenteritis outbreak associated with person-to-person transmission in a primary school in Shanghai: first report of a GI.5 norovirus outbreak in China

Abstract

Noroviruses have characteristics of environmental persistence [5]. [...]asymptomatic norovirus carriers (who can shed the virus) pose a potential challenge to outbreak control [6]. No other cases were identified during the investigation period and the whole epidemic lasted for 7 days. [...]the possibility of the AGE outbreak source being school lunch or drinking water contamination can be ruled out. According to our investigation, cases in class A were commonly exposed to the index case and the transmission mode may have included close contact in the classroom or in the PE class and exposure to vomitus. [...]no samples of vomitus were collected, so we could not detect the presence of norovirus in vomitus, though access to these samples might have contributed to a fuller explanation of the transmission mode.