The ban on using water from the aqueduct network, even for food purposes, remains in force in the Municipality of Torri del Benaco, on the Verona shore of Lake Garda, where hundreds of cases of gastroenteritis have occurred in recent days, suspected – at least for some of them – to be due to norovirus, one of the most common causes of this pathology.
The Municipality is still waiting for the results of the analyses on the samples taken from various points of the aqueduct network.
Around 50 people turned to the emergency rooms of the hospitals in Peschiera del Garda, Villafranca, Bussolengo and Malcesine between Thursday and Friday for symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. None of them required hospitalization. Others turned to general practitioners or local pharmacies. Overall, there are an estimated 300 cases of gastroenteritis. The presence of norovirus was identified in two samples analyzed, taken from patients attending the emergency room.
What is norovirus?
Discovered in 1972, noroviruses “are one of the most common agents of acute gastroenteritis of non-bacterial origin”, recalls the website of the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS). “The symptoms are those common to gastroenteritis, namely nausea, vomiting, especially in children, watery diarrhea, abdominal cramps. In some cases, a slight fever also occurs. The disease does not usually have serious consequences, and most people recover in 1-2 days without complications”.
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