The Norovirus outbreak at St. Joseph's General Hospital has been declared over, as of Monday.Nine patients on the hospital's third floor — the medical-surgical floor — had the symptoms of Norovirus, an infectious gastrointestinal virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, and visiting was limited last week after the outbreak was discovered."The first cases were March 25, and staff were very quick in immediately putting additional precautions in place," said Toby Krell, the hospital's manager of infection prevention and control.A Norovirus outbreak is considered over four days after the last symptom, explained Michael Pontus, president and CEO of St. Joseph's.While the hospital was dealing with Norovirus on the third floor, there was also an influenza outbreak on the second floor, the transitional care unit, which started at about the same time.While the situation seemed worse and there were more patients on precautions during the week last week, there were three lab-confirmed influenza cases at the hospital."We were able to stop the influenza basically in its tracks with the drug Tamiflu, an anti-influenza drug," said Krell.An influenza outbreak can be declared over six days after the last new case, and the last new case at St. Joseph's was March 30."I can't give enough credit to the housekeeping staff for the job they've done and the nursing staff for noticing that something was different," said Krell.Pontus praised staff for doing a great job during the two outbreaks."We appreciate the impact on the public in not coming to the hospital and observing the restrictions we put on — that all helps," he added.writer@comoxvalleyrecord.com