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 Health & Beauty | March 2006 
200 Report Sickness on Cruise to Mexico
 Cheryl Clark - Union-Tribune
| | Common virus suspected in outbreak; tests planned. |
More than 200 people who returned to San Diego yesterday from a cruise to Mexico reported suffering a highly infectious stomach illness.
Their reports prompted public health officials to alert area physicians that they should expect more cases of the ailment in coming days.
The outbreak occurred aboard the Celebrity Cruise ship Mercury. It was probably caused by a norovirus, an infection spread through commonly touched surfaces containing the stool or vomit of infected people, according to Celebrity Cruises and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It will take several weeks to confirm the infection source through CDC lab tests, but everything is pointing to the norovirus, said David Forney, chief of the CDC's vessel sanitation program.
As of yesterday afternoon, Celebrity Cruises said 191 passengers and 14 crew members had reported having symptoms of the illness.
Mercury's passengers and crew returned to San Diego as scheduled, and the ship was preparing to leave last night for another cruise after it was thoroughly cleaned, Forney said.
Each year, about 23 million people in the United States develop norovirus symptoms, Forney said. Signs of the ailment include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and a low fever. The norovirus has a 24-to 48-hour incubation period before symptoms appear.
The illness is usually not serious, but when it is, it commonly causes extreme dehydration that requires treatment with intravenous fluids.
While relatively few of the total yearly caseload become sick during a cruise, the virus is generally associated with such trips because cruise liners are required to report these infections, Forney said.
“Typically, this is a fecal-oral infection that is spread from hand to mouth (because) people are not good hand washers,” Forney said. “Especially on a cruise like this, you have a lot of hand-contact surfaces. You don't go on a cruise and sit in your cabin.”
Some passengers began reporting stomach problems on their second day aboard the Mercury, which left San Diego on March 6 for stops in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Ixtapa and Manzanillo, Mexico.
Celebrity Cruises promptly notified the CDC about the outbreak, Forney said, and it “called us twice a day (afterward) to report recent illnesses.”
The infected people received an over-the-counter medication kept onboard during the cruise, said Celebrity Cruise spokesman Michael Sheehan. Their conditions improved within 24 hours and none required hospitalization, he said. The norovirus is so prevalent, Sheehan said, that its infection rate is second only to viruses causing the common cold.
“Your family, whether you know it or not, has been impacted by it in the last year,” Sheehan said.
Celebrity Cruises said in a statement yesterday that it has heightened sanitation procedures for its Mercury crew, including the use of special disinfectants for cleaning throughout the ship and special cleaning steps for “high-touch” areas such as countertops, restrooms, vanity surfaces, door handles, railings, exercise equipment and grab bars.
The company said it also has hired another physician to join Mercury's existing medical team of two doctors and three nurses. |
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