As of: February 26, 2024, 3:00 p.m
By: Franziska Kaindl
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The passengers of the cruise ship “Norwegian Dawn” are stranded off the coast of Mauritius.
The reason is cases of vomiting diarrhea on board.
Currently, more than 2,000 passengers and over 1,000 crew members of the cruise ship “Norwegian Dawn” have to wait off the coast of the East African island of Mauritius.
The authorities refused to allow the ship to dock in the port of the capital Port Louis on Sunday after cases of gastrointestinal illnesses occurred on board.
The ship had previously been turned away from the French island of La Réunion.
The background is one of the most serious outbreaks of cholera that southern Africa is currently struggling with.
Suspected cholera outbreak on cruise ship
At least 14 passengers and one crew member are said to be suffering from diarrhea and vomiting, according to a report by the German Press Agency (dpa).
The US shipping company Norwegian Cruise Line confirmed that mild symptoms of a stomach illness had occurred during the trip.
Health Ministry staff took samples on Sunday morning from those affected who are isolated in their rooms.
The result is expected on Tuesday.
Until then, the passengers, the majority of whom had planned to return home on Sunday, are not allowed to leave the ship.
The passengers of the “Norwegian Dawn” are currently not allowed to leave the ship.
© Justin Lane/dpa
“Due to additional tests required by local authorities before entry, the government of Mauritius has postponed disembarkation for the current cruise and embarkation for the next cruise by two days to February 27, 2024,” it said, according to dpa from the shipping company.
The “Norwegian Dawn” set off on February 13th for a twelve-day cruise to South Africa via Madagascar and La Réunion.
Since last fall, southern Africa has been dealing with one of the worst cholera outbreaks in years.
By mid-January, around 200,000 cases and more than 3,500 deaths had been reported in the 13 affected countries.
Cholera is a bacterial disease that is caused “primarily by contaminated drinking water, poor hygienic conditions and close contact with sick people,” according to the
German Society for Tropical Medicine, Travel Medicine and Global Health
.
In around 95 percent of cases, an infection occurs without symptoms or only as a mild diarrheal illness.
In severe cases,
however, the severe loss of fluid and salt can lead to circulatory collapse or muscle cramps and even death, according to the
MSD Manual .
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How do disease outbreaks occur on cruise ships?
There are repeated outbreaks of illness on cruise ships - most recently at the beginning of the year on board the "Explorer of the Seas", where over 600 passengers and crew members showed symptoms of norovirus.
Together with salmonella and E. coli bacteria, this is the most common cause of illness on cruise ships.
The incidents of recent years are listed on the website of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
, an agency of the US Department of Health.
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In general, the frequency of acute gastrointestinal illnesses halved between 2006 and 2019, according to a CDC analysis of data from 252 cruise ships calling at American ports.
The authority attributes this to improved hygiene and sanitation standards.
However, the risk of infection is higher the larger the ships and the longer the journeys are, according to the results.
A large group living and eating close to each other can serve as a breeding ground for the disease, says William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, according to
CNN
.
"They are a closed population: a very large, compactly packed population that is together for long periods of time, often in very small spaces," he said.
“So there are a lot of opportunities for people to meet each other... and that makes it relatively easy to transmit the virus,” he says of norovirus.
But other factors also increase the risk of disease outbreaks on cruise ships: “In general, passengers and crew members from different parts of the world come together closely and intensively for a short period of time,” said Dr.
Senanayake from the Australian National University following a coronavirus outbreak on board the Diamond Princess in 2020, according to
BBC News
.
“They all have different levels of immunity, so the conditions are in place for an infection to break out.”
If you want to prevent an illness from spreading on the cruise ship, you should wash your hands often, especially after using the restroom or before eating or drinking anything, according to the CDC.
Additionally, symptoms should be reported immediately to the onboard medical facility and staff instructions should be followed.