February 7, 2020

expert reaction to more passengers testing positive for coronavirus on a cruise ship in Japan and another in Hong Kong

There have been further confirmed  cases of coronavirus on the quarantined cruise ship in Japan and another in Hong Kong.

Prof William Keevil, Professor of Environmental Healthcare, University of Southampton, said:

“The cruise industry is well aware of the spread of disease onboard ship, considering that you can have hundreds or thousands of passengers in a relatively confined, isolated environment for days or weeks. They maintain regularly cleaning practices but still get occasional outbreaks of disease, particularly norovirus which is very hardy and highly infectious. They rely on the honesty of the passengers declaring if they are unwell or have had a recent illness as they board ship. The problem is that some potentially ill passengers, having looked forward to their holiday and spent a lot of money, do not want to miss out and board ship anyway. Alternatively, someone may innocently board the ship without any symptoms which subsequently develop onboard. They are required to immediately declare this and isolate themselves.

“The present coronavirus cases reported on the cruise ships are therefore not unexpected and isolating all the passengers in their cabins, while frustrating, is the best option until they can be taken off and housed in a more comfortable facility until the incubation period has passed. Our work has shown that a similar coronavirus can survive longer than 4 days on common touch surfaces, emphasising the need for repeated cleaning and disinfection procedures onboard ship, in healthcare facilities, public buildings and transport systems.”

Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, University of East Anglia (UEA), said:

“The latest news about yet further cases on board the cruise ship Diamond Princess and cases possibly linked to another ship, the World Dream, are a worrying development but are not surprising. Cruise liners are one of the fastest growing sectors of the holiday industry and outbreaks of droplet spread diseases such as Influenza and Norovirus are relatively common on such ships. Cruise ships often have large numbers of passengers and crew, these people come from all over the world, and passengers at least are often elderly. Given that many passengers spend a large part of their time indoors, one would expect droplet spread diseases such as nCoV to spread readily on board. As passengers will disperse back around the world then outbreaks on board such ships will have the potential to enhance the global spread of this current epidemic. International public health agencies need to consider the implications of these reports as a matter of urgency and advise the public and the industry appropriately.”

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/wuhan-coronavirus/

Declared interests

None received.