Cruise death ruled accidental

Mary Smith, of Malvern, fell in during a cruise around the Baltic on P&O’s Oriana in July. The on board doctor said she was suffering from food poisoning and confined her to her cabin, which is the usual response to a potential case of norovirus. However, P&O has said that there was no norovirus outbreak on the ship at that time and that the quarantine was a precautionary measure, not confirmation that Mrs Smith actually had the highly infectious stomach bug.

The 67 year old woman appeared to recover a little and was able to finish the two week cruise which had already visited St Petersburg but when she returned to the UK on 7th August she suddenly relapsed and was admitted to the Worcestershire Royal Hospital where she died on 10th August. The Worcestershire coroner Geraint Williams has now judged that she died from natural causes.

Norovirus is also known as ‘the stomach flu’, ‘the cruise ship disease’ and ‘the winter vomiting bug’ – it’s a form of acute gastroenteritis and causes severe nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhoea, and high temperature – it’s the most common food-induced illness and is transmitted in a variety of ways from airborne transmission to food transmission to travelling on people’s hands. A vaccine is currently being tested, but outbreaks of norovirus can be expected to continue to plague cruise ships for at least the next decade.