Norovirus on 3 Alaska Cruises
From fresno_buzz on twitter:
3 Alaska cruises had norovirus outbreaks: Three Alaska cruises have had norovirus outbreaks this year# Read comments http://dlvr#it/WVCHr #http://twitter.com/fresno_buzz/statuses/81140224406720513#
Norovirus continues to cause problems on cruise ships. This is not the way anyone wants to spend a vacation. Staying in a small cabin near the bathroom for 3 or four days of a 7-10 days cruise can ruin a vacation for the passenger and those that accompany them. Most of these kinds of outbreaks can and are often avoided. Proper cleaning and sanitation, hand washing, air purification and filtration, and passengers admitting when they are ill, can and will significantly reduce the spread of Norovirus on cruise ships.
Air purification and filtration is often not talked about on cruise ships but when airborne pathogens can spread so quickly amongst so many people it might be one more item of sanitation to look at. It takes a combination of purification and sanitation to significantly reduce the spread of disease in any place of assembly.
Norovirus can spread through the air from the droplets created from toilet flushing and vomiting of infected individuals. Cleaning what is visible to the naked eye is obvious but those infectious microorganisms that we do not see can be transferred from one person to another by improper hand washing and preparing food, or touching surfaces that have not be properly sanitized, or ingesting airborne nuclei from droplets originated from the person who is infected.
Photocatalytic oxidation in air purification can significantly reduce the spread of airborne pathogens that cause disease and illness. Look and see how it works.