I keep a bottle in the car and use it every time I come out of a public place.
Montezuma's revenge.
Contagious diseases are entering the United States because of immigrants, illegal aliens, refugees and travelers, and World Health Organization officials say the worst could be yet to come.
In addition to a list of imported diseases that includes tuberculosis, sickle cell anemia, hepatitis B, measles and the potentially deadly parasitic disease Chagas, officials fear what could happen if the avian flu, which is flourishing among poultry in Southeast Asia, mutates so that it is capable of human-to-human transmission through casual contact.
excerpt: http://washtimes.com/specialreport/20050212-112200-6485r.htm
This one is pretty nasty. It knocked one of my co-workers off their feet for couple of days earlier this week.
I keep a bottle in the car and use it every time I come out of a public place.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/gastro/norovirus.htm
Norovirus... not fun.
Handwashing has fallen into disrepute since antibiotics were discovered, but it is our first and best defense against this kind of malady.
Wash your hands, Americans!
I guess the claim is going to be that Anna Nicole Smith died of the stomach virus. (wink, wink)
Yeah, like that'll work. I'm a nurse, and for years now people have been bringing their children and even small babies to the hospitals to visit. MRSA(very drug resistant strain of staph), and other nasty drug resistant bugs are turning up in random cultures all over communities. Visiting rules used to be enforced, some would say too strictly, now hospitals are all run on a PR platform with no regard to the community they serve. Any thing you want to do while visiting the hospital seems to be OK. I think that it's only a matter of time before some child crawls around on a germ-ridden hospital floor and puts its hand in its mouth and becomes very ill with some horrible, contagious disease. I often see groups of 5-10 people at a time come to the hospital to "visit." Often though, they don't seem to be there to visit the patient so much as visit with each other. Often their children are crawling around ignored by their parents, on nasty, germ ridden hospital floors. I can also recall family members bringing their children to the floor and leaving their children there for "grandma" to baby sit except that "grandma" was the patient! I will admit that social services got called in on that one. This was two small chidren actually, left with a very sick, frail older lady. I worked this last super bowl Sunday, and there was a patient with a whole room full of visitors who were very loud, yelling and cheering. An elderly patient came out of her room to complain about them being so noisy. Since she had complained, I went to the noisy bunch's room and explained that I had received a patient complaint about the noise and could they please keep the noise level down. Far from being contrite that they had disturbed a LOL much sicker than the patient they were visiting they said, "But it's the Super Bowl, man." They did quiet down some after making several rude remarks about the lady who had complained in a loud voice. As a nurse, I like to see my patients have visitors, I believe it is necessary to their well-being. I don't care if people stay all night, but for God's sake, why do so many people have to act like a Barbarian horde when they visit the hospital? Sigh, so many folks just weren't raised right. IMO, Jims wife.
An elementary school in my county closed down last week after 300 students and teachers were absent from this bug.
I've also had a friend and a family member who live in different towns who have had a bug (possibly this one) in the past 2 weeks. Says it caused projectile vomiting and diarrhea.