Theres not much worse than falling ill while on holiday, so imagine what its like when 16% of the passengers aboard the QE2 (Cunard‘s Queen Elizabeth 2) caught the norovirus not long after the luxury cruise liner set sail from Southhampton, England on January 2nd.
Norovirus, a gastrointestinal virus which can strike any person of any age, is characterized by a sudden and rather violent onset of symptoms – vomiting, nausea, diarrhea – of which just one or all may appear. Although the symptoms are downright dismal, the good news is that this virus’ only lasts from 1-3 days. However, the virus is extremely infectuous and carriers or those infected with it can still spread the germ for several days after symptoms have ceased.
Its not rare that this highly contagious disease strikes cruise ships (spread through the hands then mouth), but the QE2 became the first cruiser of the new year to be hit by such an outbreak within 27 crew members and 263 passengers.
The famous Cunard line was on a 106-night world cruise when the outbreak occured just before the ship reached its portcall at Fort Lauderdale, on route to its trans-Atlantic cruising to New York.
On November of last year, a similar outbreak occured aboard the ship Carnival Libertu, where a whopping 19% of its passengers were struck by the virus.
According to Cunard spokesperson O’Connor:
“We have no requests from passengers to disembark based on the situation” He commented.
[tags]QE2, cruise, cruiseships, out breaks, norovirus[/tags]