Is Your Next Cruise Safe from the Norovirus?
- Thursday, March 18, 2010, 10:53
- Health News
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Nothing quite dampens your cruise vacation like a little diarrhea or nausea, and that’s among the topics cruise line executives are discussing this week at the major Cruise Shipping Miami conference (formerly known as Seatrade).
Specifically, the issue is the dreaded norovirus, the fast-moving stomach bug that can quickly infect a ship (or, for that matter, a school, shopping mall or any other gathering of people). In fact, outbreaks occur in many places. So why do we hear about it so much in the news regarding cruise ships?
The reason cruise ships are watched so closely is because, as foreign-flagged vessels, they are under the watchful eyes of the Centers for Disease Control Vessel Sanitation Program regulations. While a mall wouldn’t have to report an outbreak of norovirus, a cruise ship flagged in, say, Malta, would.
And that’s the case with the 1,749-passenger Celebrity Mercury, which was very much in the news in the past few weeks with its Caribbean cruises out of South Carolina. It was hit with norovirus on multiple sailings (including 22% of passengers on one cruise in February) — so many, in fact, the CDC issued a “no sail” recommendation this week.
In response, the ship is being voluntarily “grounded” for a four-day cleaning and sanitizing through Sunday evening.
Celebrity President Dan Hanrahan told me that cleaning efforts are fully under way – including a complete sanitizing before the ship’s current cruise (when, again, some people got sick), all using CDC protocols. But that’s not all. The line also introduced new, high-tech electric static sprayers that can fog a room in about 60 seconds and “go under tables and chairs and coat everything with electric static,” Hanrahan said. The cleaning machines cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in total. In addition, for the Mercury cleanup, the line is bringing in close to 100 extra workers, including carpet cleaners and 30 people to clean the cruise terminal in Charleston after the current passengers depart.
All this despite the fact the issue, per Hanrahan, has never been the ship isn’t clean. It’s that norovirus is spreading all over South Carolina, and sick passengers keep getting on. All passengers are required to fill out a boarding form saying they are in good health, but not everyone tells the truth, Hanrahan added.
You can get norovirus by touching the surfaces a sick person touches, such as chair arms and stair banisters. And the cruise executive was forceful in his belief on the best way that women (and men) can avoid getting the virus: It comes down to what your mother always told you — wash your hands with soap and water, and especially before you eat. (Celebrity also provides hand sanitizer gel dispensers all over the ship.)
“We’re all becoming germaphobes,” Hanrahan said. ” ‘Seinfeld’ started it on his show. Be like him. He wouldn’t touch anything.”
Fran Golden is a Boston-based freelance writer who specializes in travel and health.
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