Airborne Disease On Cruise Ships

In the current outbreak the Diamond Princess cruise ship is a study case for the propagation of the disease.

Airborne disease on cruise ships. Cruise ships are required by the CDCs Vessel Sanitation Program VSP to report all onboard cases of gastrointestinal illness 24 hours prior to arrival in any US. The first deaths were reported Thursday. In the HBO documentary the ships doctor reiterates that by February 9th he was sure that people without symptoms were infecting others.

In fairness to Princess Cruises it is nor perfectly clear whether coranavirus like norovirus can be transmitted in an airborne manner. Vectorborne Diseases Cruise ship port visits may include countries where vectorborne diseases such as malaria dengue yellow fever Japanese encephalitis and Zika are endemic. Respiratory diseases are common infectious illnesses on cruise ships.

The CDC has not ever stated that coronavirus can be transmitted through the air. The explosive transmission on the Diamond Princess cruise ship as well as other coronavirus outbreaks constituted telltale signs that airborne transmission was happening. But the CDC has never even addressed the fact that norovirus clearly can be transmitted in this manner.

Looking at infection data from the ship the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has hypothesized how things could have gone differently. This study integrated an individual-to-individual probability model a susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered epidemic model at the individual scale and an onboard indoor social contact network model for evaluating the infection risk on a typical cruise ship voyage. A case control study identified the ships whirlpool spa and filter as.

Close living quarters may increase the amount of group contact. The main route for transmission was considered to be from person-to-person but other routes should not be neglected such as aerosol transmission via central air supply or drainage systems 50. For more information about noroviruses on cruise ships call the CDC public response hotline at 1-800-CDC-INFO 1-800-232-4636.

Influenza A outbreak on a cruise ship. People joining the ship may bring the virus to other passengers and crew. Close contact transmission was likely happening on that cruise ship but the disease had spread far more quickly than non-airborne diseases typically spread.