REGINA – The University of Regina said there are now 64 cases of extreme gastrointestinal sickness reported on campus.
The school confirmed Tuesday norovirus is the culprit behind the illnesses going around on campus.
“We expected we would have a rise in cases simply on the fact that we’re communicating better with people,” Darren Cherwaty, U of R Health & Safety Director explained.
“Public Health has said that majority of those cases are related to the same time period last week that the original cases were from.”
The Regina Qu’Appelle Health Authority said the food-borne illness is fairly common in the region, especially during the winter and spring months.
It tested 13 samples so far, and 10 were positive.
“We don’t have an exact cause or source but that is typical in food borne outbreaks. We often don’t find the exact cause”, Deputy Medical Health Officer, Dr. Maurice Hennink said.
Read more: U of R confirms norovirus reason why students fell ill on campus
Norovirus is quite contagious and can spread from contact with infected people, contaminated food or water, or touching contaminated surfaces.
Meantime, the university said it will continue its precautionary measures, set in place last week.
“This weekend, we went through the entire facility and cleaned all our surfaces with a particular cleaning chemical product called accelerated hydrogen peroxide,” Cherwaty said.
“We continue to follow that in the sense of all of our high contact surfaces. Food is no longer self serve, it’s all served food”.
The Fitness and Lifestyle Centre will continue to remain closed until March 4th.
The University is reminding students to regularly wash their hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water.
Anyone exhibiting signs of nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea is urged to stay home for a minimum of 48 hours.
“We continue to have a conference call with Public Health on a daily basis and so we’re hoping the cases are on a downward trend, but again, we’ll wait for Public Health to confirm that for us”, Cherwaty replied.