Tag Archives: UNC

Me teaching Chapman how to golf: Norovirus everywhere

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The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Panhellenic Council has postponed sorority recruitment due to an outbreak of norovirus-like symptoms for a “significant section of the Greek community,” according to an email sent to students Thursday.

The council said it has taken the recommendation of Campus Health and the Orange County Health Department to cancel at least Thursday and Friday’s planned events.

“Please go to Campus Health immediately if you are showing any symptoms,” the Panhellenic Council said in an email.

In Australia as we welcomed the first day of spring, hundreds of people have been struck down by gastroenteritis with New South Wales Health urging affected people to stay home and follow medical advice.

There were 39 gastro outbreaks in NSW institutions between August 20 and 26, including 22 in childcare centres, 10 in aged-care homes, five in hospitals and two in schools.

NSW Health said at least 348 people were affected by the bug in these outbreaks, which is more than double the previous five-year weekly average number of outbreaks for August.

And the bug finally has a name.

Director Communicable Diseases, NSW Health, Vicky Sheppeard said it appeared the outbreaks were caused by viral gastroenteritis including rotavirus and norovirus which spread easily.

“If your work involves handling food or looking after children, the elderly or patients, do not return to work until 48 hours after symptoms have stopped.

“The best defence against gastroenteritis is to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and running water for at least 10 seconds before handling and eating food, and after using the toilet, changing nappies or assisting someone who has diarrhoea or vomiting.”

10 seconds? In the U.S. it’s 20. How can all these scientists come up with different recommendations when looking at the same data. Values. And I agree with 10.

Winter has been a bad season for gastro in Australia; 1900 people attended NSW emergency departments with the bug in early August.

Brisbane has also been affected by an outbreak, with 51 childcare centres hit in the eight weeks to August 14.

NSW Health said all children should receive the rotavirus vaccine for free as part of the National Immunisation Program.

These figure come after NSW Health data showed there were 35,670 confirmed flu cases in NSW last month, making it the worst month on record for flu cases in NSW.

University students’ hand hygiene practice during a gastrointestinal outbreak in residence: What they say they do and what they actually do
01.sep.09
Journal of Environmental Health Sept. issue 72(2): 24-28
Brae V. Surgeoner, MS, Benjamin J. Chapman, PhD, and Douglas A. Powell, PhD
http://www.neha.org/JEH/2009_abstracts.htm#University_Students%92_Hand_Hygiene_Practice_During_a_Gastrointestinal_Outbreak_in_Residence:_What_They_Say_They_DO_and_What_They_Actually_Do 
Abstract
Published research on outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness has focused primarily on the results of epidemiological and clinical data collected postoutbreak; little research has been done on actual preventative practices during an outbreak.

In this study, the authors observed student compliance with hand hygiene recommendations at the height of a suspected norovirus outbreak in a university residence in Ontario, Canada. Data on observed practices was compared to post-outbreak self-report surveys administered to students to examine their beliefs and perceptions about hand hygiene. Observed compliance with prescribed hand hygiene recommendations occurred 17.4% of the time.

Despite knowledge of hand hygiene protocols and low compliance, 83.0% of students indicated that they practiced correct hand hygiene during the outbreak. To proactively prepare for future outbreaks, a current and thorough crisis communications and management strategy, targeted at a university student audience and supplemented with proper hand washing tools, should be enacted by residence administration.

 

UNC Public health school serves raw milk cheese at welcome reception

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Although North Carolina is largely seen as a basketball-first state, college football is definitely king during the fall months. Despite a current top-25 ranking for Carolina, and a less-than-stellar start of the season for N.C. State (a last minute one-point win over Georgia Southern) the two schools are gearing up for the all-important rivalry game in November. The rivalry often spills over into other areas; including public health and food safety.

Liz Rogawski, a student at UNC Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Public Health writes in a letter to The Daily Tarheel,

raw-milk-cheese-940x626Students, faculty, and staff in the School of Public Health today were welcomed to the fall semester with a large selection of local delicacies as part of the welcome-back social. The spread included raw milk cheese — cheese that is made from unpasteurized milk. The irony of serving raw milk cheese in a school of public health is hard to miss. Pasteurization, which kills harmful bacteria, is one of public health’s finest achievements in disease prevention.

Raw milk is “150 times more likely to cause foodborne illness and results in 13 times more hospitalizations than illnesses involving pasteurized dairy products,” according to the Food and Drug Administration website (this is from a CDC-authored paper -ben).

The serving of raw milk cheese puts our students and staff at unnecessary risk of diseases that have been prevented by pasteurization since the mid-19th century. Luckily, we have plenty of epidemiologists around to investigate any disease outbreaks if needed.

The CDC-authored paper that Rogawski cites reports that between 1993-2006, “of the 65 outbreaks involving cheese, 27 (42%) involved cheese made from nonpasteurized milk. Of the 56 outbreaks involving fluid milk, an even higher percentage (82%) involved nonpasteurized milk.”

The raw data shows more outbreaks related to pasteurized-milk cheeses compared to unpasteurized-milk the relative risk tells a different story.

The authors go on to say:

Because consumption of nonpasteurized dairy products is uncommon in the United States, the high incidence of outbreaks and outbreak-associated illness involving nonpasteurized dairy products is remarkable and greatly disproportionate to the incidence involving dairy products that were marketed, labeled, or otherwise presented as pasteurized.

A 2013  joint FDA/Health Canada risk assessment detailed the relative risks.

While there are foodborne illness risk differences between soft and hard unpasteuized cheeses due to the influence of water activity, raw milk cheeses, regardless of aging carry increased risk (see this 2013 outbreak and others as well as D’Amico and colleagues, 60-day aging requirement does not ensure safety of surface-mold-ripened soft cheeses manufactured from raw or pasteurized milk when Listeria monocytogenes is introduced as a post processing contaminant).

Communicating the risk to the eaters is important, I’m all about informed choice.