More than 50 students and teachers from three Hong Kong schools have contracted gastroenteritis after dining at the same restaurants during an exchange trip to mainland China, according to the city’s health authorities.
The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said on Wednesday that between March 3 and 10, a total of 52 teachers and students developed acute gastroenteritis symptoms after travelling to Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, last week.
According to the CHP, 16 of them sought medical attention and nobody required hospitalisation.
Its investigations found that the teachers and students had dined at the same restaurants in Shaoguan.
“The CHP could not rule out the possibility that some of the cases were infected by consuming contaminated food and has notified the Guangdong authority of the relevant restaurants,” it said.
One person vomited during the trip and some teachers and students subsequently fell ill when they returned, the CHP said. “In this context, some of the cases may have been infected through person-to-person transmission or a contaminated environment.”
3 secondary schools
The CHP initially said on Monday that 23 students from a secondary school in Sha Tin contracted gastroenteritis following a trip to Shaoguan from March 6 to 7.
In the Tuesday statement, the CHP said that additional gastroenteritis cases involved teachers and students who participated in two other exchange trips to Shaoguan from March 3 to 4 and from March 6 to 7.
Local media reported that the initial cluster affected students from Sha Tin Government Secondary School, and the other two schools were Lok Sin Tong Ku Chiu Man Secondary School and TWGHs Chen Zao Men College.
According to the CHP, viral gastroenteritis is more common in cooler months, often caused by norovirus and rotavirus.
On Monday, it also alerted Hong Kong residents that Japanese authorities had reported more than 150 cases of norovirus infections since February, as well as an increase in infectious gastroenteritis in the country recently.
People should wash their hands with soap and water, instead of alcohol-based hand sanitisers, because alcohol cannot effectively kill gastroenteritis-causing viruses like norovirus, the CHP said.
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