Norovirus, the disease no one likes. Norovirus is the virus that causes the disease gastroenteritis or more commonly known as the "stomach flu/bug". It causes (in most cases) 2 days of watery diarrhoea, severe stomach pain, intense nausea and vomiting. It is extremely contagious through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit and diarrhoea. It affects almost everyone by the age of 5 and over 200,000 people annually die from this disease.

Sure, nobody wants to catch the dreaded stomach flu, however, it is made much worse when you have a fear of the very thing it causes: vomiting. The fear of vomiting (emetophobia) can cause one to develop OCD, social anxiety, and can overall mess with a person's entire life. They do whatever it takes to avoid vomiting, such as washing hands all the time, not eating expired food, avoiding high risk foods etc. Imagine what it is like to catch the stomach flu as an emetophobe; yeah, a bit more than just "not fun".

There are vaccines for most highly transmissible diseases in the world such as the flu, chicken pox, measles, whooping cough, hepatitis A+B, and finally Covid 19. These are all highly transmissible diseases that often cause death. According to the CDC, throughout the past decade of 2010 - 2020, there have been 12,000 - 52,000 deaths annually. Now compare that to the approximate 200,000 deaths annually caused by Norovirus and you begin to wonder why there isn't a vaccine for it already.

Look at Covid-19. Scientists were able to study the virus AND create MULTIPLE 90%+ effective vaccines eligible for humans within ONLY 6 MONTHS. Imagine what sort of vaccine could be created with this amount of effort put into studying norovirus. 

If you want to enjoy your Christmas without the burden of the dreaded stomach flu plaguing and ruining your weekend, perhaps this petition is the right one to sign. And for emetophobes like myself, we need this. Say no more to norovirus and sign the petition to get the CDC and WHO to develop an effective vaccine against norovirus.