At least seventy people aboard a Princess Cruises ship have become ill during a confirmed norovirus outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that 55 cruise ship guests and 15 crew have fallen sick aboard Coral Princess.
CDC Confirms Norovirus Outbreak on Coral Princess
The ship, carrying 1,822 passengers, departed Singapore a month ago bound for Los Angeles. The CDC says the symptoms reported by affected guests and crew were mostly vomiting and diarrhea.
The outbreak was reported a week ago. The cruise line has strengthened “cleaning and disinfection procedures according to the outbreak prevention and response plan.”
The CDC’s Vessel Sanitation division is monitoring the outbreak remotely and said it will review the ship’s outbreak response and sanitation efforts.
The ship is expected to dock in California on Sunday, November 17. Then, Coral Princess will sail a series of cruises to and from Florida via Panama Canal transits.
The CDC has recorded 11 cruise ship outbreaks so far this year, most of which have been confirmed to have norovirus as the causative agent.
Norovirus is highly contagious and can spread via contaminated food, water, and unclean surfaces. Although outbreaks at sea always make the headlines, cruise ship cases only make up about 1% of all Norovirus cases.
Meanwhile, cruises aboard another princess ship, Diamond Princess, in Australia and New Zealand, have been dogged by port turnaround disruptions over the past two weeks. There has been a gastrointestinal outbreak aboard the ship, and there was extended deep cleaning in port.
Guest Linda Everworth, who is on an extended back-to-back 21-night sailing said she has been required to disembark the ship three times in order for the crew to complete deep cleaning. Guests on the current sailing which departed on November 16, were again advised of “a slight delay in the embarkation process”.
