Tag Archives: cruise ship

Norovirus…again

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I have never been on a cruise ship; just the thought of masses of people in close quarters on open water makes me want to barf. Large norovirus outbreaks are associated with settings where people live in close quarters and can easily infect each other, such as cruise ships, dormitories, and hospitals. Contaminated food, water, an infected person are all potential sources of norovirus. Viral contamination of environmental surfaces (fomites) may persist during and after outbreaks and contribute to further illnesses. The source of the Sun princess cruise ship outbreak is currently unknown. 

A norovirus outbreak has struck at least 91 passengers on a Sun Princess cruise ship.
The affected people were treated for gastro after the ship docked in Brisbane on Thursday morning.
A Queensland Health spokesman told Daily Mail Australia: ‘Metro North Public Health Unit is aware of at least 91 cases of gastro on board a cruise ship that berthed in Brisbane this morning.
‘We have been advised that on-board testing has found norovirus to be the cause of the illness.’
It comes after 140 passengers came down with gastro in February after a Sun Princess cruise returned from a 14-day trip around New Zealand.
A fortnight before that, there was another outbreak on the vessel during a previous cruise.

From the rerun files: norovirus hits cruise ships

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I’ve never been on a cruise. Sometimes we talk about taking one, hopping from island to island and relaxing on the open seas.

And then comes another round of norovirus outbreaks. Lots of news coverage, throwbacks to the poop cruises and pictures of the CDC Vessel Sanitation program officials boarding ships.

Restaurants are linked to 64 per cent of norovirus outbreaks. CDC says that cruise ships get a lot of the attention but onlyaccount for only about 1 per cent of norovirus outbreaks. But not everyone goes on a cruise. In 2013, according to the Florida-Carribean Cruise Association 11.7 million North Americans (out of a total of ~530 million residents) went on cruises.Screen Shot 2015-04-14 at 10.46.44 PM

It’s a numbers game: one per cent of the outbreaks happen in a setting that just two per cent of the population visit. Like Schaffner says, what’s the Crusies ?

But norovirus is everywhere. But being stuck on a ship with projectile vomiting doesn’t sound fun. According to the Guardian, two separate Royal Caribbean ships are experiencing outbreaks and are on their way back to San Diego.

Health officials are investigating what caused the outbreaks aboard the ships bound for California, both owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited. The ships docked on Monday and Tuesday in San Diego.

Celebrity Cruises reported 106 sick passengers on board the Celebrity Infinity, which arrived on Monday in California. The ill vacationers accounted for 5% of the 2,117 travelers on board. Six of the more than 900 crew members were also sick.

Epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control are investigating the outbreak, and collected eight stool samples on board. Crews are tightening sanitation and disinfection procedures. 

Crew members are planning a “staged disembarkation” to avoid exposing healthy passengers to sick ones, potentially contaminating them with the infectious stomach virus.

Sewage running down walls; poop piles up on stranded Gulf cruise ship

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Passengers on a Carnival cruise ship drifting in the Gulf of Mexico are sleeping on its decks, making do with a few working toilets, and doing what they can to get food — all due to a weekend engine fire left the vessel dead in the water.

CNN reports the Carnival Triumph was about 150 miles off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, heading back Sunday morning to Galveston, Sewage_spews_from_drai19b1ae5e-dd69-4635-9537-a7f0ae9ac62d0000_20120424235220_320_240Texas — where it had departed Thursday on a four-day trip — when a fire broke out in an engine room, according to Carnival Cruise Lines.

The ship’s automatic fire extinguishing system kicked in and soon contained the flames, and no injuries were reported, Carnival reported.

Yet this fire left the ship — and its 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew members — adrift without propulsion, the cruise line said, halting its trip back to port.

The first of two tugboats that will tow the ship to Mobile, Alabama, arrived on Monday evening, the cruise line said in a statement. The ship should arrive in the Gulf city some time Thursday.

Not being able to sail, though, is just one of the problems. Issues with running water, scarce electricity and more contributed to headaches big and small, according to passengers and their loved ones.

Toby Barlow’s wife Ann told him there was “sewage running down the walls and floors” with passengers being asked to defecate in bags and urinate in showers due to a lack of functioning toilets. Food lines ran 3½ hours long and some, like herself, slept outside to keep cool.

How to avoid norovirus: don’t watch people barf, or hold their hair back

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You can earn some credibility holding back a woman’s hair while she vomits; you can lose credibility when a 2-year-old vomits all over the car seat, and then while attempting to clean it up, you vomit in response, like in Stand By Me (see below).

I’ve done both.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control investigated a 2009 outbreak on a cruise ship and concluded infected passengers were significantly more likely to have an ill cabin mate, and to have resided or dined on the deck level where a vomiting incident had occurred during boarding.

That’s right: someone barfed while passengers were boarding the ship and just watching and trying to contain that little bit of throw-up that just happened in your mouth was a statistically significant risk factor.

Questionnaires about when people did or did not seek medical care, hygiene practices, and possible norovirus exposure were placed in every cabin after the outbreak began. The ship had 1,842 passengers on board, and 83 percent returned the questionnaires. Of the 15 percent of respondents who met the case definition for acute gastroenteritis, only 60 percent had sought medical care on the ship.

Less than 1 per cent of the crew reported illness, and their low attack rate may have been due to the few crew members who had direct contact with passengers. This included separate sleeping and dining areas and alternate passages for boarding and exiting the ship.

"Cruise line personnel should discourage ill passengers from boarding their ships," according to study author Mary Wikswo, MPH, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Once on board, passengers and crew who become ill should report to the ship’s medical center as soon as possible. These quick actions are crucial in preventing the introduction and spread of norovirus on cruise ships and allow ship personnel to take immediate steps to prevent the spread of illness."

What I conclude, based on this and other studies, including our own, is that telling people to wash their hands has almost no effect — and that the best way to control the spread of norovirus – on cruise ships, in restaurants, in schools – is to break the infection cycle because these noroviruses are crazy infective: stay home, isolate yourself, tie your hair in a bun, and barf away.

650 sick with norovirus on cruise ship

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A luxury cruise liner which has been plagued by outbreaks of norovirus has been forced to cut short its latest voyage after hundreds of passengers were struck down by the bug.

Fred Olsen Cruise Lines admitted three passengers were currently in isolation on the Boudicca, but those travelling on the vessel claim as many as 650 of the 900 people onboard have been affected by the norovirus.

It is the sixth time in just sixth months that the ship has suffered problems with the bug, which causes sickness and diarrhea.

Boudicca was on the final leg of a 23-night cruise to the eastern Mediterranean, but has cancelled stops in Malta and Lisbon to dock two days early in Liverpool next week.