Hundreds get sick
aboard Royal Caribbean cruise ship
By Associated Press |
Posted: Sun 10:41 PM, Jan 26, 2014 |
Updated: Sun 10:42 PM, Jan 26, 2014
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) The Royal Caribbean cruise line
on Sunday ended a ship's 10-day trip in the Caribbean early after hundreds of
passengers and crew members were sickened with a gastrointestinal illness.
The Miami-based company made the announcement a few hours
after officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention boarded the Explorer of the Seas during its U.S.
Virgin Islands port call to investigate the illness and evaluate the outbreak
response.
"New reports of illness have decreased day-over-day,
and many guests are again up and about. Nevertheless, the disruptions caused by
the early wave of illness means that we were unable to deliver the vacation our
guests were expecting," Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. said in a
statement.
The decision to end the trip came after consultation
between CDC
officials and members of the company's medical team, the company said.
The CDC said earlier that 281, or nearly 10 percent, of
the 3,050 passengers aboard the 15-deck ship reported getting sick during the
cruise that left Cape Liberty, New Jersey, on Tuesday. Twenty-two crew members
also reported feeling ill, according to a Friday statement from the health
agency.
On Sunday evening, the cruise line said the outbreak of
the gastrointestinal illness with vomiting and diarrhea "spiked over the
weekend," but it did not disclose a tally of sickened people.
Tests would have to confirm what caused the outbreak, but
fast-spreading norovirus is often to blame for similar symptoms sweeping closed
quarters like those on cruise ships.
Royal Caribbean said special cleaning products and
disinfectants proven to kill norovirus were being used to clean ship before it
returned to the U.S. It said a full sanitization program would be carried out after
the Explorer of the Seas reached its home port Wednesday.
Janet Diaz, a company spokeswoman, said CDC
representatives boarded the Explorer of the Seas during the afternoon when it
docked in St. Thomas, the main island of the U.S. Virgin Islands. During the
previous port call in Puerto Rico, the ship underwent "extensive and
thorough sanitizing" to help prevent more people from getting sick, she
said.
Passengers and crew who fell ill have "responded
well to over-the-counter medication being administered onboard the ship,"
Diaz said.
On Friday, an Explorer of the Seas passenger named Arnee
Dodd tweeted that she had fallen ill aboard the ship and was quarantined with
the other sick people. The Connecticut woman wrote that ship employees
"put a lock down on food & are constantly cleaning everything."
Royal Caribbean said it was "taking several
steps" to compensate passengers for the shortened trip. It also sought to
assure customers scheduled for the ship's next voyage that "all possible
measures will have been taken to prevent further problems."
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd
Morten Arntzen is
a director at the Royal Caribbean
Cruises Ltd., and a trustee at the Committee
for Economic Development.
Note: Open Society
Foundations was a funder for the Committee
for Economic Development, and the Human
Rights Watch.
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, was the chairman for the Foundation to
Promote Open Society, a benefactor for the Harlem Children's Zone, and a benefactor for the Human Rights Watch.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Committee for Economic Development, the Harlem Children's Zone, the Aspen Institute
(think tank), the Millennium Promise, the Human Rights Watch, and the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund.
Maria A. Sastre is
a trustee at the Committee for Economic
Development, and was a VP for the Royal
Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
Michael R.
Bloomberg was a benefactor for the Harlem
Children's Zone, and is the founder of the Bloomberg Family Foundation.
Bloomberg
Family Foundation was a funder for the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and the CDC
Foundation.
Amy Robbins
Towers was a board member for the CDC
Foundation, a director at the Millennium
Promise, and is a director at the Human
Rights Watch.
CDC Foundation
is a foundation for the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
David Satcher was
a board member for the CDC Foundation,
a director at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), an administrator for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and a surgeon
general for the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS).
Agency
for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS).
Donna E. Shalala
was the secretary for the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and a trustee at the Committee for Economic Development.
Maria A. Sastre is
a trustee at the Committee for Economic
Development, and was a VP for the Royal
Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
Morten Arntzen is
a trustee at the Committee for Economic
Development, and a director at the Royal
Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
Quincy Jones was a
director at the Millennium Promise,
and is a director emeritus at the NAACP
Legal Defense & Educational Fund.
Karen Hastie
Williams is a senior director at the NAACP Legal
Defense & Educational Fund, and William
H. Hastie’s daughter.
William H. Hastie
was Karen Hastie Williams’s father,
and a U.S. Virgin Islands governor.
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