Posted on November 17th, 2009 by Craig Maltby, Editor
Are you crusin’ and losin’ by getting sick?
One of my most memorable vacations was an Alaskan cruise a few years ago. Everything was fantastic (except for the stealthily-created $600 bar tab cheerfully handed to me at home port). My wife and I would gladly do
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The new Oasis of the Seas — with more than 2000 virus-haven restrooms.
The new Oasis of the Seas — with more than 2000 virus-haven restrooms.
another cruise in a heartbeat, but, next time, we’ll probably need to take some extra precautions so as to not ruin the cruise by being holed up sick in our cabin all week.
A new CDC study published this month and discussed in the New York Times this week shows that restroom cleanliness may well be the epicenter of infectious outbreaks on cruise ships.
And we’re talking a lot of outbreaks. Since 2005, 66 outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness aboard cruise ships have been reported, according to the Times story.
Novovirus, the cause of almost all of these outbreaks, “is a tough virus,” said the lead author of the study, Dr. Philip C. Carling in the Times story. “It isn’t killed by alcohol hand rubs. Chlorine bleach is the only thing that works.”
Good God, there’s more. One study in 2009 of passengers returning from a three-month world cruise showed that 4 percent tested positive for hepatitis E, with one-third of those being symptomatic.
In my book, cruise vacation means immune system prep. Diet, sleep, exercise, supplementation. All hands on deck. Actually, keep your hands off the deck and off the restroom fixtures, too.
