Health officials identify new strain of winter vomiting bug

HEALTH officials have warned the winter vomiting bug, which has shut down wards in up to 17 hospitals, is a new strain that has been causing chaos in hospitals worldwide for the past four years.

Clinical Microbiologist, Dr Robert Cunney of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), said there has been a sharp increase in the past four to five years in the incidence of the bug.

“But this has been documented not just here but right across Europe, the US, Australia and elsewhere and it seems as though there’s been a change in the virus, a sort of a new strain that has emerged that seems to be more transmissible, possibly is more likely to cause disease as well,” Dr Cunney said.