Research Centre for Occupational and Social Medicine (FFAS), Bertoldstraße 63, 79098, Freiburg, Germany.
Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Freiburg, Albertstraße 23b, 79104, Freiburg, Germany.
Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 2020 Nov;93(8):911-923. doi: 10.1007/s00420-020-01543-4. Epub 2020 May 1.
Globally, norovirus (NoV) is the leading cause of gastroenteritis infection among all ages. The development of prevention strategies in the field of occupational health requires a detailed knowledge about the impact of the disease on employees. This review article aims not only at evaluating the burden of NoV outbreaks on staff but also at discussing implications for future prevention strategies.
Published NoV outbreaks in Central and Northern Europe were identified via a systematic literature search. Additionally, published NoV outbreaks in Germany were detected via a manual literature search. Key epidemiological data, as the number of symptomatic staff, was then extracted. The proportion of affected employees was calculated for each dataset (single NoV outbreaks or aggregated data of multiple outbreaks).
Overall, 116 datasets were extracted from 72 relevant articles. 144,852 persons were affected by NoV gastroenteritis, 25,408 out of them (17.5%) were employees. 23,874 (94.0%) of them fell sick during outbreaks in hospitals and related settings. NoV cases among personnel in food establishments were reported only sporadically (mean ratio: 0.01).
Employees in hospitals and community facilities seem quantitatively to be most vulnerable towards NoV epidemics. Therefore, high quality of prevention measures in these settings, respective compliance with prevention strategies should have the highest priority. The disease can be considered as an occupational disease, even regularly without long-term consequences. Following work safety rules, a vaccination for vulnerable groups should be recommended if the vaccine development turns out to be successful.
在全球范围内，诺如病毒 (NoV) 是所有年龄段人群中导致胃肠炎感染的主要原因。职业健康领域预防策略的制定需要详细了解该疾病对员工的影响。本文旨在评估诺如病毒爆发对员工的负担，同时讨论对未来预防策略的影响。
通过系统文献检索，在中欧和北欧发现已发表的诺如病毒爆发情况。此外，还通过手动文献检索发现了德国已发表的诺如病毒爆发情况。然后提取关键流行病学数据，如症状员工人数。将每个数据集（单一诺如病毒爆发或多个爆发的汇总数据）的受影响员工比例进行计算。
总体而言，从 72 篇相关文章中提取了 116 个数据集。有 144852 人受到诺如病毒胃肠炎的影响，其中 25408 人（17.5%）为员工。其中 23874 人（94.0%）在医院和相关场所爆发期间患病。食品行业人员中报告的诺如病毒病例很少见（平均比例：0.01）。
医院和社区设施的员工似乎在数量上最容易受到诺如病毒流行的影响。因此，这些场所应高度重视高质量的预防措施，以及对预防策略的相应遵守。即使没有长期后果，该疾病也可被视为职业病。如果疫苗开发成功，应建议为弱势群体接种疫苗，以遵守工作安全规则。
