A second outbreak of the norovirus at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops was short-lived.

Interior Health declared the outbreak over this afternoon, only six days after it started. In total seven people became between Thursday and Saturday.

Infectious disease specialist Doctor Edith Blondel-Hill says this round started when a patient with the disease vomited and fainted, and spread the illness to staff.

“The patient had just vomited, the staff immediately rushed to the help of the patient. And then within 24 hours, they came down with the symptoms,” Blondel-Hill says.

“So initially, we were quite concerned about ‘why are staff coming down with this?’ But as soon as we realized the circumstances, it was almost unavoidable with norovirus, because it’s so highly-infectious.”

The outbreak was much shorter than the last one that had ended on Feb. 17, where more than 140 people became ill at the hospital and the Hillside Psychiatric over a span of nearly a month.