The nearly two-week outbreak of norovirus on Holland America's cruise ships is fed up with 152 passengers and more than 12 crew members with symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea, health officials said.
Less than 6% of the 2,614 passengers who reportedly reported being ill from a disastrous illness on a 12-day voyage through the Panama Canal; According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In addition to the infected vacationers, 17 of the 969 staff members on board also reported getting sick.
The rash of vomiting passengers marks the seventh outbreak on the cruise ship in the first two months of the year.
“During the current voyage, many guests in Rotterdam have reported symptoms of gastrointestinal disease,” a spokesman for Oceanliner told the Post.
“The cases were mostly mild and resolved quickly. We have launched enhanced hygiene protocols in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in order to minimize further transmission, including continuous disinfection of the vessel. It was there.”
The sick passengers and crew experienced diarrhea and vomiting on a nearly 1,000-foot-long vessel that departed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on February 2nd, according to the Health Agency.
Since then, cruise liners have isolated sick passengers and workers, increased cleaning and sanitizing measures, contain the outbreak, and collected stool samples from those affected for further testing.
The 13-deck ship is scheduled to return to Florida on Friday following planned stops in Jamaica, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and the Bahamas. According to Cruisemapper.
The disease was reported to the CDC's Ship Sanitation Program on February 7th, according to the agency.
The Dutch American outbreak marks the seventh illness in 2025 to clean cruise ships. Last year was the worst year for the outbreak of the gastric virus on cruises over a decade when 18 outbreaks were reported.
Norovirus has been linked to three other outbreaks since the beginning of the year, the CDC reported.
The latest outbreak comes one week after 160 passengers and eight crew members experienced gastrointestinal symptoms on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship travelling from Tampa to the Western Caribbean.
The official cause of the occurrence remains unknown.
