Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Dec 8:6:38790.
doi: 10.1038/srep38790.

Contact infection of infectious disease onboard a cruise ship

Nan Zhang  1 , Ruosong Miao  2 , Hong Huang  1 , Emily Y Y Chan  3
Affiliations

Contact infection of infectious disease onboard a cruise ship

Nan Zhang et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Cruise tourism has become more popular. Long-term personal contact, complex population flows, a lack of medical care facilities, and defective infrastructure aboard most cruise ships is likely to result in the ship becoming an incubator for infectious diseases. In this paper, we use a cruise ship as a research scenario. Taking into consideration personal behavior, the nature and transfer route of the virus across different surfaces, virus reproduction, and disinfection, we studied contact infection of infectious disease on a cruise ship. Using gastroenteritis caused by the norovirus as an example, we analyzed the characteristics of infectious disease propagation based on simulation results under different conditions. We found hand washing are the most important factors affecting virus propagation and passenger infection. It also decides either the total number of virus microorganisms or the virus distribution in different functional areas. The transfer rate between different surfaces is a key factor influencing the concentricity of the virus. A high transfer rate leads to high concentricity. In addition, the risk of getting infected is effectively reduced when the disinfection frequency is above a certain threshold. The efficiency of disinfection of functional areas is determined by total virus number and total contact times of surfaces.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Distribution of functional areas and contact surfaces.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Passenger behavior in different functional areas.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Norovirus propagation on the cruise ship under control conditions over a period of 480 minutes (8 hours).
(A) Infection rate of passengers; (B) Norovirus distribution in the main floor; (C) Norovirus distribution in the restaurant and on the sightseeing deck.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Virus distribution on outer door handles of restrooms with different usage frequencies.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Percentage of infected passengers with different seat distributions.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Norovirus propagation on a cruise ship for different probabilities (P) and efficiencies (E) of hand washing (Simulation time: 480 minutes).
(A) P = E = 0; (B) P = E = 30%; (C) P = E = 60%; (D) P = E = 90%.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Relationship between percentage of infected passengers and hand washing.
Figure 8
Figure 8. Norovirus propagation on the cruise ship under different transfer rates (RT) between surfaces (Simulation time: 480 minutes).
(A) RT = 0.1; (B) RT = 0.2; (C) RT = 0.3; (D) RT = 0.4.
Figure 9
Figure 9. Quantitative analysis of the relationship between the percentage of infected passengers and the transfer rate between surfaces.
Figure 10
Figure 10. Norovirus propagation on the cruise ship under different intervals of disinfection (ID) (Simulation time: 480 minutes).
(A) ID = 1 hour; (B) ID = 2 hours; (C) ID = 4 hours; (D) Never.
Figure 11
Figure 11. Relationship between the percentage of infected passengers and the interval of disinfection.
Figure 12
Figure 12. Relationship among percentage of infected passengers, total number of virus and total contact times based on the sensitivity analysis of disinfection of different surfaces.
(SNA: seat near the aisle; DS: sightseeing deck; HSDS: handrail of stairs to the sightseeing deck; DT: dining table; HSR: handrail of stairs to the restaurant; DR: doorknob of restroom; RC: Retail counter).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Buckley R., Gretzel U. & Scott D. Tourism megatrends. Tourism Recreation Research, 40, 59–70 (2015).
    1. Diedrich A. Cruise ship tourism in Belize: The implications of developing cruise ship tourism in an ecotourism destination. Ocean & Coastal Management 53, 234–244 (2010).
    1. Cruise Lines International Association. 2010 CLIA cruise market overview: statistical cruise industry data through 2009. Available at: http://www2.cruising.org/Press/overview2010/. (Accessed 2010 Dec 6).
    1. Ward K. A., Paul A., Mcanulty J. M., Iwasenko J. M. & Dwyer D. E. Outbreaks of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 and seasonal influenza A (H3N2) on cruise ship. Emerging Infectious Diseases 16, 1731–1737 (2010). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kiren M. et al.. Measles, Rubella, and Varicella Among the Crew of a Cruise Ship Sailing From Florida, United States, 2006. Journal of Travel Medicine 19, 233–237 (2012). - PubMed

Publication types