Ship Sails Again After Virus Outbreaks

Clipper Cruise Line’s Nantucket Clipper last week resumed its U.S. and British Virgin Islands winter sailings after canceling two cruises because of outbreaks of gastroenteritis (inflammation of the stomach and intestines) that affected about half of the roughly 100 passengers, the line said.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified the infectious agent as a so-called Norwalk virus, which can produce diarrhea, abdominal cramps and nausea, according to Dave Forney, chief of the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program. But the source of the virus was still unknown; as of press time Wednesday, the CDC was investigating.

According to the CDC, the virus can be transmitted through water, food and person-to-person contact, among other ways. “Our strong suspicion . . . is that people were picking up this virus on the islands because it shows up later in the cruise,” said Clipper spokeswoman Liz McQuinn, adding that the CDC ruled out shipboard food and water as sources of the infection. But the CDC’s Forney last week denied that any source had been ruled out.

The CDC first investigated the situation on Jan. 29 and 30 on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands toward the end of the Nantucket Clipper’s weeklong cruise, Forney said. The ship’s Jan. 30 cruise was canceled while the crew scrubbed and disinfected the ship, McQuinn said. It returned to service Feb. 6, but several days later, CDC inspectors in Cruz Bay, St. John, found more ill passengers, Forney reported. The Feb. 13 cruise was canceled; the ship was scrubbed again and returned to service Feb. 20, he added. The Feb. 20 cruise, due to end today, is the ship’s last of the season in the Virgin Islands, McQuinn said. It is due to sail Saturday from Jacksonville, Fla., to Charleston, S.C.