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Outbreak shuts down university campus
<table border="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2">Richard Foot</td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2">CanWest News Service</td></tr> </tbody></table>
Saturday, October 14, 2006
<!--begin story text--> Public health officials in New Brunswick say they won't know until Monday what caused the mysterious outbreak at Mount Allison University that has so far made more than 100 people sick and forced the closure of the campus on Friday.
Thirty-nine students and staff members of the university had been sent to hospital by Friday afternoon with severe diarrhea, vomiting and other gastrointestinal problems, after a suspected flu-like virus began sweeping through the campus on Thursday.
Public health officers ordered the university to shut down for the weekend. All public buildings were closed and classes abruptly ended. Even students writing exams were told to put down their pens and leave.
Mount Allison is a small, mainly undergraduate university of about 2,000 students and 400 staff members in Sackville, N.B., near the Nova Scotia border.
Most of its students live in dormitories on campus, one of the few campus residences in Canada supervised by non-student, adult "dons." On Thursday, those dons began taking sick students with gastrointestinal symptoms to hospital.
Rumours began to spread that food was contaminated in the campus dining hall, or that Sackville's water supply might be the cause. Provincial health officials were called in, inspections were carried out and by Friday morning both the water system and the dining room were declared safe.
Officials did say, however, that a Norwalk-like virus is the likely culprit.
Norwalk is a highly contagious, food-borne virus causing headaches, cramps, vomiting and acute diarrhea, spread by person-to-person contact through the feces of infected people.
It usually strikes groups living in close contact, in schools, hospitals and cruise ships. Lack of hand-washing and personal hygiene trigger most Norwalk outbreaks. Symptoms commonly last up to 48 hours.
University spokeswoman Sheila Blagrave said health officials were gathering stool samples from sick students on Friday and won't be able to identify the exact virus until those test results are available on Monday.
Until then, she says, "We're trying to get information out so parents will know what's happening. We're also looking after our kids to make sure they go to hospital if they need to. The real scare here is dehydration. There are some who have been dehydrated."
Among the sick this weekend are several university football and volleyball players, who like hundreds of other Mount Allison athletes must sit out what was expected to be one of the busiest sporting weekends of the year.
An inter-varsity football game in Halifax, a women's hockey game in Charlottetown, plus soccer, rugby and lacrosse games, and a Mount Allison basketball tournament have all been cancelled. Visiting teams from as far away as Maine were told Friday not to make the weekend trip to New Brunswick.
"It's a major disruption at a critical time of the year, no question about that," said Jack Drover, Mount Allison's athletic director, in an interview Friday. "It's very disappointing for all of us.
"One of my hockey players told me she was in the middle of a mid-term this morning, and they took her paper away from her and told her to go home -- right in the middle of her test."
Blagrave said cleaners will do a campus-wide disinfection of the university over the weekend, in the hopes of getting classes and programs started again on Monday.
CanWest News Service
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=024cdf1b-d799-4f8b-85bd-e8a236dfa5bd&k=82485
<table border="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2">Richard Foot</td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2">CanWest News Service</td></tr> </tbody></table>
Saturday, October 14, 2006
<!--begin story text--> Public health officials in New Brunswick say they won't know until Monday what caused the mysterious outbreak at Mount Allison University that has so far made more than 100 people sick and forced the closure of the campus on Friday.
Thirty-nine students and staff members of the university had been sent to hospital by Friday afternoon with severe diarrhea, vomiting and other gastrointestinal problems, after a suspected flu-like virus began sweeping through the campus on Thursday.
Public health officers ordered the university to shut down for the weekend. All public buildings were closed and classes abruptly ended. Even students writing exams were told to put down their pens and leave.
Mount Allison is a small, mainly undergraduate university of about 2,000 students and 400 staff members in Sackville, N.B., near the Nova Scotia border.
Most of its students live in dormitories on campus, one of the few campus residences in Canada supervised by non-student, adult "dons." On Thursday, those dons began taking sick students with gastrointestinal symptoms to hospital.
Rumours began to spread that food was contaminated in the campus dining hall, or that Sackville's water supply might be the cause. Provincial health officials were called in, inspections were carried out and by Friday morning both the water system and the dining room were declared safe.
Officials did say, however, that a Norwalk-like virus is the likely culprit.
Norwalk is a highly contagious, food-borne virus causing headaches, cramps, vomiting and acute diarrhea, spread by person-to-person contact through the feces of infected people.
It usually strikes groups living in close contact, in schools, hospitals and cruise ships. Lack of hand-washing and personal hygiene trigger most Norwalk outbreaks. Symptoms commonly last up to 48 hours.
University spokeswoman Sheila Blagrave said health officials were gathering stool samples from sick students on Friday and won't be able to identify the exact virus until those test results are available on Monday.
Until then, she says, "We're trying to get information out so parents will know what's happening. We're also looking after our kids to make sure they go to hospital if they need to. The real scare here is dehydration. There are some who have been dehydrated."
Among the sick this weekend are several university football and volleyball players, who like hundreds of other Mount Allison athletes must sit out what was expected to be one of the busiest sporting weekends of the year.
An inter-varsity football game in Halifax, a women's hockey game in Charlottetown, plus soccer, rugby and lacrosse games, and a Mount Allison basketball tournament have all been cancelled. Visiting teams from as far away as Maine were told Friday not to make the weekend trip to New Brunswick.
"It's a major disruption at a critical time of the year, no question about that," said Jack Drover, Mount Allison's athletic director, in an interview Friday. "It's very disappointing for all of us.
"One of my hockey players told me she was in the middle of a mid-term this morning, and they took her paper away from her and told her to go home -- right in the middle of her test."
Blagrave said cleaners will do a campus-wide disinfection of the university over the weekend, in the hopes of getting classes and programs started again on Monday.
CanWest News Service
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=024cdf1b-d799-4f8b-85bd-e8a236dfa5bd&k=82485
