Norovirus onboard Princess Cruises' Sapphire Princess sickens scores
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 115 passengers and 28 crew were sickened on the April 5th Princess Cruises' Sapphire Princess voyage from Los Angeles.
The voyage will return to Los Angeles next Tuesday.
CDC officials say the causative agent in this outbreak was norovirus.
In response to the outbreak, Princess Cruises and the crew aboard the ship reported the following actions:
Collected stool specimens from gastrointestinal illness cases for testing.
Isolated ill passengers and crew.
Increased cleaning and disinfection procedures according to the ship’s outbreak prevention and response plan.
Norovirus is a very contagious virus. You can get norovirus from an infected person, from contaminated food or water, or by touching contaminated surfaces. The virus causes your stomach or intestines or both to get inflamed (acute gastroenteritis). This leads you to have stomach pain, nausea, and diarrhea and to throw up.
To date, CDC has investigated six cruise ship outbreaks with five of the outbreaks caused by norovirus.