Over 150 Cruise Ship Passengers Fall Ill with Stomach Bug

WESH.com is reporting that more than 150 cruise ship passengers fell ill on a Royal Caribbean cruise this week.

The cruise, which set sail from Port Canaveral on Sunday on a seven-day Caribbean itinerary, saw at least 167 passengers fall ill from a “stomach bug” this week. About 2 percent of the total guest capacity fell ill.

Most commonly, illness outbreaks aboard cruise ships stem from a gastrointestinal illness known as norovirus.

Because the number does not amount to 3 percent of the total guest capacity, the sudden spread of the illness is not technically an outbreak.

Interestingly, just days ago we blogged about the fact that the total number of cases of cruise ship outbreak was down in 2018. But this most recent case shows that hundreds of people can be affected even when the situation does not technically qualify as an “outbreak”.