Norovirus Isn't Just on Skin and Surfaces

Gastroenteritis caused by norovirus — also known as “winter vomiting disease” — is a pervasive, extremely unpleasant, and self-limited condition that plagues closed communities ranging from hospital wards to cruise ships. Generally, standard contact precautions are used to interrupt transmission, but are they enough? To assess ambient air for norovirus during outbreaks in eight Quebec hospitals, Canadian researchers obtained air samples from infected patients' rooms, hallways outside infected patients' rooms, and nurses' stations.

Norovirus RNA was detected in 14 of 26 of samples from patients' rooms, 6 of 16 hallway samples, and 3 of 6 nurses' station samples. The researchers then conducted in vitro experiments in which they aerosolized lab…