Abstract
Use of Templates to Identify Source of Norovirus Outbreak
Highlights
To the Editor: On November 22, 2006, an infection control nurse notified the Marion County (Oregon) Health Department about acute gastroenteritis among persons who had attended a reception at a medical facility on November 16, 2006
We determined that 10 had cases of acute gastroenteritis, 53 had no symptoms, and 3 had minor symptoms
None of the 10 attendees with acute gastroenteritis sought medical attention; stool specimens from 2 of them tested positive for norovirus (1 positive for genogroup II and 1 positive for both I and II)
Summary
We traced implicated oysters (the source of the outbreak) through distribution records; screened stool specimens for norovirus by RT-PCR; tested oysters from the implicated lot for norovirus by qRT-PCR; entered data into a custom outbreak database template; calculated relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using Epi Info (www.cdc.gov/epiinfo); and assessed the significance of the association between acute gastroenteritis and consumption of implicated oysters by the χ2 or Fisher exact test. None of the 10 attendees with acute gastroenteritis sought medical attention; stool specimens from 2 of them tested positive for norovirus (1 positive for genogroup II and 1 positive for both I and II). Illness was associated with consumption of raw oysters on the half shell (RR 11.8; 95% CI 2.8–50; p = 0.0001), which was reported by 8 of the 10 attendees with acute gastroenteritis.
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