Doctors treat stricken cruise tourists
Doctors boarded a cruise ship anchored off the Greek port of Piraeus on Friday in order to treat around 430 British passengers who have fallen ill.
Passengers on the £200 million British superliner, Aurora, owned by P&O Cruises, have contracted the highly contagious Norwalk stomach bug.
The ship arrived into port on Friday morning and all passengers and crew were forbidden from disembarking.
However, a team of doctors from Athens were allowed aboard and medical and sanitation supplies were loaded onto the stricken ship.
The ship has now set sail for Gibraltar, its next scheduled port of call. Many of those onboard have had their movement restricted to limit the spread of the disease.
The Norwalk virus causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting for around 24 hours and can be spread by touch for at least a week after exposure.
The ship is carrying 1,900 British tourists and 837 crew. The virus is believed to have been brought on the liner by a passenger at Southampton, where the cruise began.
A P&O spokeswoman said: “We are undertaking extensive sanitation programmes to control the spread and asking passengers to wash their hands after leaving the bathroom,” she added.
Compensation claims would be considered “on a case-by-case basis”, she added.
The ship left the UK port on October 20th on a 17-day round trip and has docked at Spanish, Italian and Croatian ports before heading for Piraeus, near Athens. Passengers were banned from disembarking in the Croatian port of Dubrovnik and Venice, Italy.
