Question

Almost 90% of the disease outbreaks that occur on cruise ships are due to norovirus. Suggest two reasons that the risk of norovirus infection is high on cruise ships. Why is the spread of norovirus infection difficult to control once an outbreak has occurred?

Answer 1

The reasons for the risk of norovirus infection to be high on cruise ships are

• The employees or staffs, passengers live in very close system like very nearby quarters or rooms
• The chance of new people entering the cruise ship can transmit to other people

The main difficulty in controlling the infection if ones an outbreak occurs are

• It has a wide route of transmission (person to person ,food to person)
• The virus can stay viable at any environment
• When the virus sheds ,it is huge in number
• The virus can survive for nearly 5 months
• A very minimal number or quantity of organism can lead to infection