Ship Returns with Sick Travelers 3rd Time

Hundreds of passengers have taken ill with an intestinal bug on a Celebrity Cruise ship's third straight trip from South Carolina.

Cruise line spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez said Monday 350 of the 1,829 passengers on the Celebrity Mercury got ill during the latest cruise, which left Charleston on March 8.

The ship has canceled a Monday port call and was returning to Charleston a day earlier than scheduled. It has been undergoing cleaning at sea and will be cleaned again in Charleston.

Officials say hundreds of passengers and crew got sick during two other cruises aboard the Mercury that returned to Charleston recently.

Tests linked the first outbreak to the common norovirus. The virus can spread quickly in closed quarters and is hard to eliminate because people who have been exposed can reinfect places they frequent. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramps.

South Carolina health officials have reported twice as many cases of norovirus as normal this winter.

The virus may have come on board the ship with passengers, crew members or supplies. But it's almost impossible to pinpoint a specific cause in a closed place like a cruise liner, Adam Myrick, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, said earlier this month.

"It's so ubiquitous. It's everywhere," he said. "There's no way you can say it came from this stairwell, this handrail in this stairwell."

And because the virus lingers in those who have been ill even after they feel better, even extensive cleaning can make it hard to prevent outbreaks.

"It's very difficult to do because you can shed the virus up to two weeks after a patient doesn't have the symptoms anymore," he said. "As soon as someone sets foot into a supposedly sanitized environment, they can still be shedding the virus."