This you don't want to have inside you

"Landep News"

This you don't want to have inside you

The past two months have revealed 350 cases of norovirus on a cruise ship based in San Francisco. The federal government has decided to look into the matter, but the ship’s owners blame the outbreak on the passengers.

53 of the 2,196 passengers that paid for a 10-day trip on the Sea Princess that started its journey to Alaska on June 19 were the victims of a contagious gastroenteritis infection. The plot thickens because the Center for Disease Control has announced that since May 10, four of these outbreaks affected people on the cruise ship. Although no other records of such events happening on the ship, in the past exist, the number of infected person registered during one month is concerning.

The first outbreak was reported on May 10 when 44 of the 2,049 people on board contracted the virus. The number became even more alarming, when on May 20, 128 passengers among the total of 2,053 had to face the symptoms of the same disease. A third outbreak was reported on May 30, when during another cruise 142 passengers were affected. This high number of patients is due to the contagious nature of this virus that can be easily spread through water. A person can get sick only by touching a contaminated surface.

It can successfully be prevented by respecting basic hygiene rules such as hand washing, basic cleaning and properly cooked food. The symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and also stomach pain. Usually, an infected person should recover in more or less than two days but serious cases can result in the patient’s death.

These outbreaks of norovirus are quite often recorded on cruise ships. Only in 2010 six cruise ships reported six such situations while other five of them had to confront with an unknown disease. In 2011 the situation is similar. Four ships have had to face such outbreaks and the Sea Princess and the Coral Princess, both belonging to Princess Cruises are among those ships.

The spokeswoman of Princess Cruises declared that the company considers a passenger responsible for the fourth outbreak that took place on June 19: “In addition to our cleaning procedures, we rely on passengers’ compliance and good hygiene habits”.

Candy also assured the public that the ship was the subject of a thorough cleaning supervised by CDC and by the health officers of the cruise and was cleared to leave for another cruise on Thursday, last week. She also stressed that this isn’t a virus typical for cruises, but a virus that affects each year about 23 million people. Would you go on a cruise on the Sea Princess?

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