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Source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...ing-bug-poses-risk-for-cruise-line-passengers
Sydney Vomiting Bug Poses Risk for Cruise-Line Passengers
By Jason Gale on January 15, 2013
A new strain of a vomiting bug first found in Australia has killed nursing home residents from California to Japan, spoiled luxury cruises and may have sickened more than 1 million Britons so far in its global sweep.
The new norovirus, identified in Sydney last March, caused the worst bout of gastroenteritis in a decade in Australia?s Victoria state last year. Health-care facilities in the Northern Hemisphere should prepare for a ?severe? epidemic this winter, researchers from eight countries said in a report this month.
The norovirus strain is adding to a list of winter ails topped by a resurgence of flu. Gastro outbreaks have been reported in New Zealand, France, Belgium, Denmark and Scotland, and cruise ships carrying suspected patients have docked in New York and Florida the past three weeks, heralding a new wave of infections for which there is no specific treatment or vaccine.
?Cruise ships are almost a sentinel sensing system for norovirus,? said Peter White, professor of microbiology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who helped identify and characterize the new strain. ?Norovirus is going to wreak havoc in their cruise industry for the next year while this new strain gets a grip...?
Sydney Vomiting Bug Poses Risk for Cruise-Line Passengers
By Jason Gale on January 15, 2013
A new strain of a vomiting bug first found in Australia has killed nursing home residents from California to Japan, spoiled luxury cruises and may have sickened more than 1 million Britons so far in its global sweep.
The new norovirus, identified in Sydney last March, caused the worst bout of gastroenteritis in a decade in Australia?s Victoria state last year. Health-care facilities in the Northern Hemisphere should prepare for a ?severe? epidemic this winter, researchers from eight countries said in a report this month.
The norovirus strain is adding to a list of winter ails topped by a resurgence of flu. Gastro outbreaks have been reported in New Zealand, France, Belgium, Denmark and Scotland, and cruise ships carrying suspected patients have docked in New York and Florida the past three weeks, heralding a new wave of infections for which there is no specific treatment or vaccine.
?Cruise ships are almost a sentinel sensing system for norovirus,? said Peter White, professor of microbiology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who helped identify and characterize the new strain. ?Norovirus is going to wreak havoc in their cruise industry for the next year while this new strain gets a grip...?