Over 100 students at a Long Island high school are thought to have contracted a drug-resistant strain of norovirus during a Friday night dance in March.
Though some students were sick ahead of the Friday dance at Babylon High School, the festivities were interrupted when a multitude of peers started vomiting, according to News12. Suffolk County health commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott said that the highly-contagious norovirus is the likely culprit, as symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain, as seen in a video shared by the outlet.
“My brother went to the dance, and he just said everyone was throwing up— he only lasted 10 minutes there,” 10th grader Kate Schmitt told the outlet, noting that she had been sick a few weeks prior.
The district immediately sent an alert to parents to have them come and collect their children. By Monday, half of the students were absent from school. “Well, my grandsons, both of them, they got really sick … violently throwing up and diarrhea and everything,” June Trusillo told ABC7. (RELATED: At Least 5 Dead As Hemorrhagic Marburg Virus Spreads To Tanzania)
As norovirus spreads through sick people handling food, health officials sent a team to the school cafeteria to carry out an investigation. It revealed that the virus did not spread from there, News12 continued. Custodians were sent to thoroughly clean and sanitize the school over the weekend.