The Ruby Princess ship operated by Princess Cruises recently had more than 300 sick passengers and crew members, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to the organization’s website, 34 staff members and 284 of the ship’s 2,881 guests reported getting ill during the cruise on February 26. The main complaints of the travellers were diarrhoea and vomiting.
The CDC stated on its website that environmental health officers and epidemiologists from the (Vessel Sanitation Program) carried out a field response in Galveston, Texas, on March 5.
They performed “a targeted environmental health assessment to check for exposure and pathways of illness transmission and observed the ship’s outbreak prevention and response plan processes” while they were on board, according to a CDC representative in an email. The epidemic investigating team is now reviewing its conclusions.
The Princess spokesman said, “With the first indication of a rise in the number of passengers reporting to the medical centre with gastrointestinal illness, we promptly implemented further enhanced sanitization processes to stop the person-to-person spread of this virus.
The spokesperson stated that this sanitation programme was created in collaboration with the CDC and entails actions such as cleaning high-touch areas like railings and elevator buttons, isolating sick passengers in their rooms until they are no longer contagious, and providing “regular verbal and written communication to passengers about steps they can take to stay well while onboard.”
Prior to its subsequent cruise, Ruby Princess was likewise sanitised. The ship will return to Galveston on March 12 after a weeklong trip across the Western Caribbean, according to a spokesman.
