Officials with the North Dakota Health and Human Services Department are stressing the need for proper hand washing and sanitizing. Levi Schlosser is a respiratory disease epidemiologist with the department. He says Minnesota officials are reporting a significant uptick in reports of Norovirus infections. Schlosser says for the month of December the state saw reports of Norovirus go from 30 at this time in 2023 to 60 reported cases in 2024. He says Norovirus in not reported to the state in North Dakota so it’s uncertain how prevalent the virus is.
“…But we have typically seen an increase in the number of gastrointestinal related illness complaints reported to the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services as well as the number of foodborne related illnesses that occur around the holidays, typically when individuals gather over the holidays near the end of December, we see spikes in those reported cases as well.
And as with most December’s, Schlosser says there’s also a growing number of cases of another common December visitor -- influenza…
“…Influenza has also began to see a pretty sharp increase over the last couple of weeks with over 600 newly reported cases as of the previous week.”
Schlosser says while there are vaccines for influenza, COVID and RSV, there is not protection from Norovirus. He says with Norovirus being a highly contagious disease it underscores the need to properly wash your hands. Especially after using the restroom and before preparing any food.