This Wednesday, January 11, 2023, the Morbihan prefecture issued an order prohibiting the collection and marketing of all shellfish caught in a specific area, that of the Auray downstream river and Baden cove.
In question: contamination of shellfish (and especially oysters) by a norovirus, favored by a dilapidated sanitation network and saturated by the heavy rains of recent weeks. In total, and since the end of December 2022, 6 shellfish growing areas have been subject to such restrictions: a hundred companies are impacted.
Who are noroviruses? Noroviruses (NoV) are small viruses that are transmitted between humans mainly by the faecal-oral route. Clearly: infected people (who may be asymptomatic) reject the virus in their stools, and it can infect new people through the ingestion of contaminated food or water. Note: noroviruses can resist purification treatments and thus be present in the environment and persist there for a long time.
Noroviruses are responsible for acute gastroenteritis
After an incubation time of between 10 and 50 hours, norovirus can cause acute gastroenteritis. This is manifested by vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, loss of appetite, low fever… Complications can occur in fragile people (chronically ill, pregnant women, elderly , babies…): dehydration, hypokalemia (potassium deficiency) or even renal failure.
Symptoms usually last between 2 and 3 days; however, people infected with norovirus can remain contagious for up to 3 weeks after the illness has cleared.
How to protect against noroviruses? Unfortunately, noroviruses are very resistant! To protect yourself, the best thing is to adopt impeccable hygiene: wash your hands well after going to the toilet, before taking care of a fragile person and before cooking, for example.
Source :handles
