The investigation into the outbreak of gastrointestinal illness at Manhattan High School in Manhattan , KS continues as laboratory testing is ongoing.
The Riley County Health Department is currently working with Kansas Department of Health and Environment and Manhattan High School administration to investigate reports of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea at Manhattan High School (West Campus).
Officials say testing can take anywhere from a couple of days to a week to complete.
To date, about 150 high school students were sent home from school with the above stomach issues.
In addition, local media report that school Superintendent Marvin Wade said elementary and middle school students started reporting similar symptoms, plus some with fever.
The school district are implementing a plan to clean all schools and buses in the district.
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I would have liked to see the protocol for the response, who they had handling the cleaning and disinfection procedures and if they used a disinfectant that has at least 5-log efficacy for non-enveloped viruses. Did they have their own custodial staff handle it, or did they hire a firm that is third party qualified to mitigate it? The problem with it is that they can wipe down to mitigate the spread of the pathogen but they can not prevent the facilities from re-contamination as the occupiers of the space could always be carriers, coming down with symptoms and eliminating the pathogen at different times. This recontaminates the surfaces that were just decontaminated. In comparison, This population is somewhat restricted to the community, not like a cruise ship or airplane that has a different population coming aboard all the time. If transportation entities get shut down, they can loose millions in revenue and brand equity. The risk is much higher both financially and public health wise for the latter. So public health officials may handle these differently. I just hope we never have non-enveloped virus strain that starts to have significant lethality.