Norovirus case scale revealed at Brighton hospital (From The Argus)

Norovirus case scale revealed at Brighton hospital

8:20am Wednesday 27th February 2013 in News

Hospitals have had to deal with 24 separate outbreaks of a highly infectious virus in the past ten months.

A total of 225 patients being cared for at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust have fallen ill with suspected norovirus since April.

A further 55 staff also caught the bug, which causes sickness and diarrhoea, during the same period.

Norovirus can spread very rapidly in closed environments such as hospitals, schools, cruise ships and prisons.

It is not normally dangerous but can be more severe in vulnerable patients.

The highest number of cases happened in November, which is in line with a national outbreak of the virus at that time.

The outbreaks meant wards had to be closed to new admissions during deep cleaning.

This has a knock-on effect on other departments as it means fewer beds are available in the trust’s hospitals.

Work being done to reduce outbreaks includes urging all visitors and staff to use hand gels when entering and leaving wards.

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