MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Virus outbreak hits 700 on board Carnival Liberty

Investigators from the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention joined Thursday the last leg of a Carnival Liberty cruise in St. Maarten following a gastrointestinal outbreak that has affected over 700 passengers and crew.

The outbreak, believed to be the norovirus but not confirmed, struck people aboard the 110.000 ton Carnival Liberty, one of the world's largest cruise ships, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the Miami-based company. The ship left Rome on November 3 with about 2.800 paying passengers and was due to arrive Sunday in Fort Lauderdale.

Norovirus is a highly contagious virus that causes gastroenteritis and other flu like symptoms.

Jennifer de la Cruz, a Carnival Cruise Lines spokeswoman, said the Miami-based cruise giant hasn't detected the origin of the outbreak, but two passengers acknowledged getting sick in Rome prior to getting on the cruise.

''It may have been those two who were the source, but that's speculation,'' she said.

''A lot of people have been ill, but very, very few people are ill now, so it appears to have run its course'' said David Forney, chief of the CDC's vessel sanitation program in Atlanta.

According to Forney, the CDC team sailing on the Liberty includes two medical epidemiologists, who are examining medical records, symptoms and patients' profiles. A third member, an environmental health officer, is checking ship records on how potable water and food have been handled to ensure the ship is adhering to protocol.

In an unusual step, Carnival is cutting short the ship's next cruise to have two extra days in port in Fort Lauderdale to give the Liberty a thorough cleaning.

Forney, who is sending additional CDC staffers to monitor that cleaning, said the cruise line plans to deploy some 55 additional contract cleaners, who with fogging machines and wipes will scrub all the cabins and public spaces on the ship with bleach and another sanitizing material.

The special treatment is called for because of the exceptionally large number of people who got sick, he said. Some 506 passengers and 137 crew members had come down with the ailment by Wednesday, by CDC count. That amounts to 18% of the passengers and nearly 12% of the crew.

Forney said the high numbers, both in totals and percentages, likely stem from the ship being on an unusually long voyage: a trip across the Atlantic to reposition the vessel from its summer itinerary in Europe to the Caribbean.

Gastrointestinal bugs are common both on land and at sea. Earlier this month, a Royal Caribbean Cruises ship, the Adventure of the Seas, reported some 130 passengers and crew were sick with gastrointestinal symptoms on a cruise from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Cruise lines argue they often get disproportionately tarred because they monitor and report illness outbreaks, while other public spots like hotels don't. ''If you really look at the presence of norovirus, there is way more [of it] all over the globe,'' says Royal Caribbean spokesman Michael Sheehan.