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GREENSBORO – Some hospital emergency rooms and urgent care centers have seen an increase recently in the number of patients with symptoms consistent with stomach flu.

Health experts say stomach flu is caused by noroviruses, which are highly contagious and difficult to kill. They say only testing will determine definitively whether a person has stomach flu.

But Moses Cone Health System officials said its emergency rooms and urgent care centers have seen as much as a 25 percent increase in gastrointestinal illness.

“Any type of stomach upset, you know, GI, feelings of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramping that we're seeing, and so it's not necessarily been identified positively as norovirus," said Lori Mason, a public health epidemiologist.

There have been some confirmed cases of norovirus-caused stomach flu elsewhere in Guilford County.

“Nursing homes and long-term care facilities where we actually have had positively identified, laboratory confirmed norovirus cases," said Mason.

The Guilford County Health Department typically works with those facilities to stop the illness' spread.

“Whoever is responsible for that long-term care facility will go out and talk with them about appropriate cleaning,” said Connie Jones, communicable disease nurse. “They may or may not tour the facility if they feel that it's appropriate. They advise about notification of visitors

Last weekend, six students were hospitalized after more than 150 fell ill at a Raleigh hotel where they attended a catered dinner at a YMCA conference.

While the source of the outbreak was being investigated, noroviruses can be spread through food.

“If somebody who's got norovirus is handling food and it gets into the food or drink, it can sort of spread like wildfire in that way, so, it's highly contagious," said Zack Moore, with the N.C. Division of Public Health.

Health experts said it takes two or three days for stomach flu to run its course.

They said common alcohol-based hand sanitizers won’t kill the virus.

“Frequent washing of hands with soap and water could prevent this,” said Dr. Paolo Coll, director of Moses Cone Urgent Care Center. “Not your ordinary hand sanitizers, because there's a little resistance there to alcohol. Bleach is probably a better product to clean surfaces that could have been contaminated."

Chad Campbell, a spokesman for High Point Regional Health System, said there had been no increase in the number of patients in the system with symptoms of stomach flu.