The recent incident in Boston College, which made 120 students ill, alarmed health officials in school about novovirus. The novovirus, which makes 21 million people ill annually in the United States, is easy to get but difficult to remove from body parts.
Recent incident about the E. coli outbreak made it easy to associate novovirus with E. coli, but there are some differences to take note.
According to the health officials of Boston College, novovirus is the cause of 120 ill students who got the infection after eating a close Chipotle restaurant, NBC News reported.
There is an assumption that the novovirus that made the students sick is part of the E. coli outbreak as the outbreak affected 52 people which was linked to the Chipotle restaurant, the report said.
But both E. coli and novovirus have some differences even they both spread in food and both cause stomach ache and diarrhoea, the report added.
Novovirus can infect quickly, in which symptoms can experience on 12 to 48 hours. Moreover, novovirus makes you vomit and there is a high number point affecting thousands, sick enough to consult doctors, the report added.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that novovirus can cause 19 to 21 million stomach or intestine inflammation cases each year, Boston.com reported.
Watch the video by CBS Boston in YouTube about Boston College students sickened by novovirus as the 120 students got the novovirus infection after eating near the Chipotle restaurant. Reports also said that the E. coli outbreak recently is not the same with the novovirus infecting more than a hundred students in Boston College.