Babson College Hit By Norovirus

There are some crucial college lessons that you just can't learn inside a classroom: how to make friends, how to manage your time, how to set fire to boats and release them into the Charles. The most important teaching to remember from your university experience, it seems? WASH YOUR HANDS.

Babson College in Wellesley shut down its campus Saturday evening and will remain closed until Wednesday at 5:00 a.m., thanks to an outbreak of the norovirus. About 100 students and staff have been affected by this virus, which Harvard University Health Services Director David S. Rosenthal '59 says is usually spread through hand-to-mouth contact. Rosenthal notes, "People who live in dorms and eat in the same dining rooms are prone to getting this type of thing."

More insightful medical advice after the jump.

Harvard has also been victim to a few of its own health epidemics in years past (scabies /wait-just-kidding-it's-not-scabies outbreak of October 2007). In December of 1994, Harvard experienced a norovirus outbreak similar to that of Babson's and around 150 people were treated by UHS for vomiting and diarrhea. Rosenthal says that the origin of the virus outbreak of 1994 was most likely a dining hall employee working the salad bar. "One of the reasons we have Purell dispensers in the dining halls is because good hand washing can prevent the spread of this," he said.

So, lesson of the day: wash your hands. Especially before touching a Babson student.

Photo from Wikimedia commons.