Norovirus outbreak in Tokat: 5,000 hospitalised, details emerge on household pets
About 5,000 people in Tokat sought medical care for nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Similar symptoms have been recorded in cats and dogs, and veterinarians are urging owners to consult specialists.
Gurban Gurbanzadeh2 min read
About 5,000 people in Tokat have sought medical care with complaints of nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. The mayor of the city, Mehmet Kemal Yazıcıoğlu, said epidemiological teams from the Ministry of Health that arrived from Ankara had established that the cause of the illnesses was norovirus.
According to the mayor, specialists from Ankara carried out on-site checks and identified the pathogen behind the surge in visits to doctors in Tokat.
Similar symptoms in cats and dogs
In the same period, similar complaints began to be recorded in domestic animals. The head of the Tokat Chamber of Veterinarians, Seyit Sami Karyağdı, said that owners of cats and dogs had begun coming to veterinary clinics with complaints of diarrhoea and vomiting.
Cases of diarrhoea and vomiting resembling symptoms in humans have begun to appear in more than 15 of our veterinary clinics. We have warned the clinics about this. We ask our citizens, if such symptoms appear in cats and dogs, to be sure to consult a veterinarian.
Karyağdı noted that the chamber had contacted the city's veterinary clinics and assessed the situation. He also pointed to the importance of a joint approach to human and animal health and called for taking into account the possibility of transmission from people to animals.
We encountered similar symptoms in cats and dogs during the same period when cases began in humans. This situation has once again shown the importance of the 'One Health' approach.
Genetic differences and transmission routes
The head of the Department of Genetics at the Faculty of Science and Letters of Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University, Professor Ercan Çaçan, said there are genetic differences between the noroviruses identified in animals and the noroviruses that cause illness in humans.
The professor noted that noroviruses are found not only in humans, and pointed out that the main transmission cycle of the current outbreaks among people remains person-to-person transmission. He stressed that transmission of norovirus from animals to humans cannot be considered a widely and conclusively proven route of infection.
Noroviruses have already been described, above all, in certain animal species such as cattle, pigs and dogs. However, there are genetic differences between the noroviruses detected in animals and the noroviruses that cause illness in humans. Today the main transmission cycle of norovirus outbreaks among people occurs between people.
According to him, it would be wrong to consider every norovirus infection linked to animals, and the potential for transmission of some viruses present in animals remains the subject of ongoing scientific research.
Source: cnnturk.com
