French authorities grounded a British cruise ship with more than 1,700 passengers and crew on board on Wednesday after an elderly man on board died and dozens got stomach ailments.
The Ambition ship was in the middle of a 14-night voyage that began in Belfast and Liverpool. It planned to stop in northern Spain and the Atlantic coast of France.
By the time the ship reached Bordeaux on Tuesday evening, the stomach bug had spread. The ship’s operator, Ambassador Cruise Line, said hygiene and containment protocols were immediately implemented to prevent the spread.
Authorities have ruled out norovirus, a highly contagious form of gastroenteritis that causes vomiting and diarrhea, but secondary tests are still underway to determine what caused the passengers to become ill. Food poisoning has not been ruled out, officials said.
French authorities on Wednesday allowed asymptomatic passengers to leave a cruise ship, saying a gastrointestinal virus had caused the spread of the disease, which followed the death of an elderly man from a heart attack.
Cruise ships are no strangers to stomach virus outbreaks, with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recording about 23 gastrointestinal outbreaks on such ships last year.
Elderly man died on board
A 92-year-old British passenger died on the cruise, but his death was linked to a heart attack, French health officials said.
“At this stage, no link with the gastroenteritis episode has been established,” officials said.
Nevertheless, Étienne Guyot, prefect of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and the Gironde department, initially suspended ship landings and restricted their interaction with the port of Bordeaux.
He acted on the recommendation of the regional health agency, the Agence Regional de Sainte Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Health officials have ruled out hantavirus
Officials said the ban on disembarkation is temporary and pending the results of medical tests.
The ban on French ship landings comes as the global health community grapples with a complex outbreak of the rare hantavirus on a cruise ship in the southern Atlantic this month, which killed three people.
French officials clarified that there is no link between the British ship docked in Bordeaux and the hantavirus outbreak.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery