Norovirus Cruise Ship

How to avoid norovirus on cruise ships.

Norovirus cruise ship. Worldwide norovirus is the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis. Control measures include patient isolation hand washing and facility closure. About 1 in 5 cases of acute gastroenteritis which leads to diarrhea and vomiting is caused by norovirus.

One client asked me it safe to go on the cruise ship. In the past 20 years there have been close to 20 confirmed norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships. The following report is a review of the latest research into Norovirus and the effects on the.

Recent Cases of Norovirus on Cruise Ships. When 2 or more of the passengers or crew have gastrointestinal illness. This means if it carries 13 passengers and has a foreign cruise itinerary with US ports of call in it.

The cruise ship which was traveling along the coast of Southern California and Mexico had an outbreak of norovirus causing gastrointestinal illness in many crew members and passengers. Personally Ive made 70 cruise and ship inspections. The percentage of risk is quite small.

CDC investigators traced the source of 10 cruise ship outbreaks back to a smoothie made with frozen raspberries. The virus causes inflammation in the stomach or intestines leading to stomach pain nausea diarrhea and. On this 10-night cruise 534 out of 3071 206 passengers or crew reported being ill.

An outbreak of norovirus gastroenteritis affected passengers on two consecutive cruises of ship X and continued on 4 subsequent cruises despite a 1-week sanitization. Norovirus outbreaks are prevalent in long-term care and other health-care facilities restaurants and catered events schools and institutional settings as well as cruise ships and other transportation settings Hall et al 2011. Once exposed infected people are initially asymptomatic even though they are contagious.