More than 100 contract virus in Californian cruise ship

SAN DIEGO — More than 100 passengers have contracted the highly contagious norovirus on a ship that is touring the California coast. But the cruise line says it has no plans to end the voyage early.

The infection had struck 104 passengers and 25 crew members on the Crown Princess by the cruise’s fifth day, but fewer than 15 were still complaining of the gastrointestinal symptoms that come with the virus, Princess Cruises spokeswoman Karen Candy said yesterday (April 10).

Fifty people have been quarantined in their cabins because they could still be contagious.

The Crown Princess is on a seven-day cruise from Los Angeles that included stops in San Francisco and Santa Barbara. The ship was in San Diego yesterday and is scheduled to return to LA tomorrow.

Passengers can leave the cruise voluntarily at any of the planned stops, Ms Candy said.

Cruise lines are required to report to the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention when an outbreak affects more than 2 per cent of passengers. About 3 per cent of the 3,100 passengers on the Crown Princess were afflicted, and Princess Cruises alerted the agency.

The ship was getting a thorough cleaning while docked in San Diego and would get an even more intensive one at the end of the journey.

In January, a Royal Caribbean cruise with similar numbers aboard cancelled its voyage and returned to New Jersey after nearly 700 people contracted norovirus in one of the worst such outbreaks in 20 years. AP