An “unknown” outbreak aboard a cruise ship is spreading, and now 154 people are sickened, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an update this week.
So far, 25 crew members and 129 passengers on the Carnival-owned Cunard Cruise Line’s Queen Victoria have become ill during the trip, which is up by about 15 cases from when the illnesses were reported earlier in February, according to the CDC. The Queen Victoria cruise has 1,824 passengers and 967 crew members on board, according to the agency.
It’s still not clear what’s causing the outbreak on the cruise ship, which left Florida on Jan. 22. Symptoms include vomiting and diarrhea, said the CDC, which provided no other details.
Cunard Cruise Line confirmed that guests on the Queen Victoria became sick during the trip.
“Cunard confirms that a number of guests had reported symptoms of gastrointestinal illness on board Queen Victoria on voyage V405 which departed Florida on [Jan. 22] and arrived in San Francisco on [Feb. 7],” said the cruise operator in a statement to news outlets this week. “They immediately activated their enhanced health and safety protocols to ensure the wellbeing of all guests and crew on board and these measures have been effective.”
According to the tracking website CruiseMapper, the Queen Victoria is on a 55-day trip that will travel around the world from Germany to Australia. It’s final destination date is March 4. This week, the ship reached Honolulu, Hawaii.
The recent illnesses come about a month after nearly 100 passengers on a Celebrity Cruises vessel, the Celebrity Constellation, were sickened with norovirus when it departed in early January from Florida, said the CDC in a separate update.
In that outbreak, the agency said that 92 passengers and eight crew members became ill, with the main symptoms being diarrhea and vomiting.
