virus
 

I noticed the cruise ship "mercury" had a couple of outbreaks of norwalk virus last winter. Has anyone heard of anything recently?

There were also outbreaks in June and April. Also, in May the captain was removed from the ship for being drunk on duty.

You can see all events at sea at:
http://www.cruisejunkie.com/events.html

However, the Mercury scored 94 out of 100 when it was last inspected in July

http://wwwn.cdc.gov/vsp/InspectionQu...tionID=5816314

It can happen on any cruiseline.
A few years ago Princess line was suffering and also HAL has had outbreaks.
If many people are together in a small environment it can happen. Not just on cruisehips, but also in schools etc.
Wash your hands often, donot shake hands etc.it might help

But you do have to admit, the outbreaks have been happening more on cruiselines than in other public area where lots of people are gathered.

The issues of outbreaks and the stories about missing people from different cruiselines is making me wary of taking a cruise in general.

I suspect you hear more about them on cruiselines because, once exposed, people are still together when they show symptoms - that both makes it easy to determine that infection can be traced to ship and leads to a trail of those infected then inecting others.

A local restaurant had a Norwalk virus situation here recently - but they have no idea how many people were infected, since they all ate and went home. Many of those infected with this and other similar bugs have only minor symptoms - perhaps diarrhea for a few hours and attribute it to a "stomach bug" or can never connect it to the source even if they try.

Unfortunately the Norwalk virus (and other strains) will be found wherever there are people in close contact. That includes schools, nursing homes, cruiseships, trains, tour buses, shopping malls, etc etc.

The best protection is to wash your hands frequently and keep them away from your mouth.

The longer a cruise is, the more possibility of a virus spreading. My friends just returned from an Elderhostel tour with 36 on a bus tour. All but 3 were ill by the end of the trip.

When we cruise, we go outside on the deck or on the balcony frequently and have done ok. In 19 cruises, we've been on 3 ships with the virus. My husband has never caught it. I caught it once. One time too many!

Happy travels!

To be somewhat graphic about it, Norwalk virus is spread by what is called the fecal-oral route. That means someone got fecal germs on something that ended up in your mouth. Usually this involves someone not washing their hands after using a bathroom. Could be as simple as after that they used a utensil at the buffet, you picked up the utensil next and then ate something using your hands, or scratched your moth, bit your nails, etc.

So it is impossible to totally protect yourself from this and similar viruses. Handwashing is obviously key. We were on a cruise where they required everyone to use an antiseptic hand gel before entering the food line.

When a ship has repeated outbreaks I do not know if it is because virus survives for that long on surfaces or if is a crew member infecting something repeatedly.