Vomiting device offers direct evidence that vomit aerosolizes norovirus-like

“When one person vomits, the aerosolized virus particles can get into another person’s mouth and, if swallowed, can lead to infection”, Jaykus says. To rectify that, Jaykus and her team built a miniature “vomiting machine”, a quarter-scale model of the human digestive system complete with an artificial stomach, esophagus, and mouth. (More information on the vomiting device is available here.).

The study was published August 19 in the journal PLOS ONE.

[This blood test can tell you every virus you’ve ever had].

The first direct evidence that vomiting can aerosolize virus particles has come out of a study by researchers at North Carolina State University and Wake Forest University. “But those airborne particles could also land on nearby surfaces like tables and door handles, causing environmental contamination”. Norovirus can also remain virulent for weeks, putting people who touch contaminated areas at risk of infection.

Someone else’s vomit really can make you sick. Their goal was to determine how much of the virus was suspended in the resulting spray and how much of it was airborne.

[One day, doctors might prescribe viruses instead of antibiotics].

The device allowed the researchers to control the volume, viscosity and pressure of the simulated vomiting incidents. They determined that 800 milliliters of vomit was a good upper threshold, while anything lower than 50 milliliter of liquid would count as a “dry heave”. They designed it to mimic all the pressures and volumes present in hurling humans and then inoculated its “stomach” juices with a virus called MS2 (which is similar to the size, shape, and composition of norovirus but not unsafe to humans). (A robot named Vomiting Larry is more anatomically accurate, but is less precise with regard to pressure, says Pavia.) And while the bacteriophage was chosen because of its similarity to norovirus, it may not behave the same way when aerosolized, he says. That sounds like a safe number, until you consider that it equals roughly 13,000 particles-and people can get sick by being exposed to as few as 20 virus particles.

And those errant particles are more than enough to cause infection.

The next challenge for the vomit bot will be to help investigate how long virus particles can survive and travel in the air.