Major Shigellosis Outbreak
Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Viking Serenade
September 1,1994
The Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Viking Serenade pulled into port early from their four day Mexican voyage, after an extremely high, more than 600 passengers and crew members fell ill with shigellosis, a virulent intestinal disease, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The outbreak is one of the largest epidemics aboard a cruise ship in modern history.
The source of the shigella bacteria aboard the San Pedro-based Viking Serenade had not yet been determined, and CDC investigators were sampling the ship's food and water and testing its food preparers for signs of infection.
Of the passengers aboard, 583, or 37% of the total, reported signs of the illness, while 40 crew members out of 612 were also stricken, according to the CDC. The bacteria was found in half the stool samples taken from the passengers. Some of the passengers were hospitalized, one died.
Five passengers were taken to a hospital in Ensenada, Mexico. When the ship returned to San Pedro, California, CDC official boarded the ship, examined passengers and took stool samples.
The ship had left port on Monday, making stops in Catalina Island, off the coast of California, on Tuesday, and then traveling south to Ensenada on Wednesday. The ship was to have left Mexico Wednesday but was delayed while the crew decided what to do about the illnesses. One passenger said that Royal Caribbean announced that because of an unknown illness the ship would possibly have to return to San Pedro directly rather than spend a day at sea.
Doris Maki of Sacramento, who was with six family members on the trip to celebrate her 40th birthday, said she became ill 20 hours into the cruise. "It was awful. We all ate at the Windjammer, ravioli and fried fish, and about 20 hours later we all started vomiting," she said as she was packing bags in the car after being released from the ship. "They were passing out pills to everybody."
The CDC inspection prior to that cruise was on July 18, 1994 and the ship scored 92 out of 100. While some media reports specifically said the score was high, that is not the case.
If a perfect score is 100 and a failing score is 85, that results in a ship being held in port, then a score of 92 is only a B grade, a low B grade at that.
100 to 96 is an 'A', 95 to 91 is a 'B', 90 to 86 is a 'C' and 85 to 81 is a 'D'. Nobody in their right mind eats in restaurant that has anything less than an 'A' sanitation rating.
RCCI says passengers would be getting a full refund. In 2008, a full refund for a large Norovirus Outbreak is simply unheard of. The cruise lines claim is not their fault. How does it go from being their fault in 1994 to not being their fault in 2006, 2007 and 2008?
