Queen Elizabeth 2 Hit With Norovirus

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), as many as 300 passengers and crew on board the luxury cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2 came down with the norovirus this month. The latest mass illness to affect cruise line passengers occurred on a voyage which began on January 8th. The vessel then called at Fort Lauderdale, FL just two days later, where more than 300 passengers and crew members reportedly came down with a contagious, flu like disease. The predominant symptoms affecting passengers and crew were vomiting and diarrhea. According to CDC accounts, the outbreak affected 276 of the 1,652 passengers and a lesser number of crew members. CDC personnel boarded the vessel in Acapulco, Mexico, and Cunard crew members conducted enhanced sanitation operations there. CDC Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) staff then stayed with the ship and sailed through the remainder of the voyage. VSP personnel, according to CDC documents, “performed on board investigations, distributed and analyzed passenger and crew surveys, interviewed ill people, conducted an environmental health inspection, and made recommendations.” The CDC maintains records for “Outbreak Summaries for International Cruise Ships,” detailing the list of outbreaks aboard cruise ships with international itineraries from 1994 until the present. The cruise ships that are included in these criteria fall within the purview of the Vessel Sanitation Program and also sail on voyages spanning from 3-21 days, carrying at least 100 passengers and Include cruise ships in which 3% or more of passengers or crew reported symptoms of gastrointestinal illness to the ships medical staff during the voyage. More than 16% of the passengers aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 showed such symptoms on this voyage. The CDC report, which does not “verify all of the case numbers represented in the updates,” can be viewed at: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/surv/GIlist.htm