'Vomit Machine' Helps Us Understand Norovirus

The norovirus, a highly "contagious bug" is transferred from one human to another through contact. If you want to understand more about it, check out this "vomit machine" developed by scientists at North Carolina State University (NCSU), according to BBC News.

You could be touching infected persons, surfaces, food or drink leading to "vomiting, nausea and stomach pain".

The winter vomiting bug infects 20 million people a year. There were some scary outbreaks at the Commonwealth Games athletes' village, Heston Blumenthal's restaurant Dinner and a hospital in Wales. Most of the norovirus outbreaks are due to contaminated food workers, according to BT.

After having been probed and investigated over two years, the design uses "a hand pump and pressurized stomach model to simulate the process of vomiting into a chamber", according to The Independent.

"If aerosolized particles land on a counter top, you could also touch the counter with your hand, then touch your hand to your mouth, leading to infection," said Grace Thompson, a PhD graduate who studied the spread of the norovirus.

Norovirus is the reason gastroenteritis has spread globally. A study published in August found that 36 norovirus particles become airborne after those who have the virus vomit, which is twice the amount needed to infect another person. Hence, the scientists discover that vomiting is an important source of spreading the virus.

The NCSU researchers hope that their "vomit machine" would be able to understand the process by which the norovirus spreads, so that they can develop a way by which they could prevent it, according to hngn.