Norovirus: What to know about the wide-spread illness
Here is everything you need to know about the highly contagious norovirus.
USA TODAY
Nearly 100 Celebrity Cruises passengers got sick in a norovirus outbreak during a sailing that ended Friday.
Among 2,056 guests on board, 92 reported being ill on the line’s Celebrity Constellation ship, along with eight crew members, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their main symptoms were vomiting and diarrhea.
Celebrity increased cleaning and disinfection and isolated those who were sick, among other measures, the CDC said. The cruise line did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
The ship was on a cruise to New Orleans, Louisiana, Belize and Mexico that departed from Tampa, Florida on Jan. 3, according to CruiseMapper.
The news marks the first outbreak of gastrointestinal illness on cruises that has met the CDC’s threshold for public notification this year. The health agency logged 14 in 2023 – three of which occurred on Celebrity ships – higher than any year between 2017 and 2019. Norovirus was listed as the causative agent in all outbreaks but one last year.
Norovirus is often associated with cruises, but Ben Lopman, a professor of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, told USA TODAY last year that cruises constitute a “tiny minority of norovirus outbreaks.” Most of them take place in health care settings like nursing homes.
Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at [email protected].
