A bout of diarrhoea affecting six patients has closed the acute orthopaedics ward (3B) at Dunedin Hospital, but it is not known if the highly contagious norovirus has caused the outbreak.
Otago District Health Board infection prevention and control charge nurse manager Jo Stodart said the ward was closed on Friday as a precautionary measure.
Four beds were reopened yesterday and the situation will be reassessed this morning.
Diarrhoea and/or vomiting are a symptom of norovirus, but test results would not be available until the end of the week at the earliest, Ms Stodart said.
None of the affected patients was vomiting and there could be other causes of diarrhoea.
There had been an increase in diarrhoea in the community and she believed a rest-home had been affected by an outbreak of diarrhoea as well.
It was timely to remind people of the messages to wash and dry their hands thoroughly and to stay at home or away from work and hospitals if they were ill with diarrhoea and/or vomiting.
When a ward was closed, no further admissions were made and no visitors allowed.
Staff were reminded to "up the ante" on measures such as hand washing, and extra cleaning was done.
A recently released report into a major norovirus outbreak at the hospital one year ago raised some major problems and shortcomings during the month-long outbreak, including the refusal by some staff to comply with infection control measures.
Ms Stodart said many measures discussed in the report had been put in place already.
"Hopefully [the report] made people buy in more to the measures put in place."
