British cruise passengers hospitalized with Mystery Disease
Pastor Dale Morgan
British cruise passengers hospitalized with Mystery Disease*
From correspondents in Stockholm
July 29, 2007 08:32am
Article from: Reuters
SIX British cruise ship passengers are in hospital in Stockholm after
contracting a "pneumonia-like" infection on a Baltic cruise, a
spokeswoman for the ship owner said.
Henrik Cars, port and traffic manager for Stockholm Ports, said Swedish
doctors who examined the infected passengers yesterday suspected
Legionnaires' disease, a type of pneumonia that chiefly affects the
elderly and which lives in water.
Wendy Hooper-Greenhill of ship owner Fred Olsen Cruise Lines said the
passengers, all elderly, will be in hospital for the next few days.
Swedish officials had taken water samples to determine if the passengers
had caught the illness on board, she said.
It is not yet clear yet whether the disease is Legionnaires', she said.
Ms Hooper-Greenhill said the five women and one man in hospital were all
British.
The cruise ship, the Black Watch, was nearing the end of a 17-night
cruise and had 756 passengers and 329 crew on board.
“At the moment, not only is the infection a bit of a mystery but how it
was contracted is as well,” she said.
The ship had docked at five ports before Stockholm, St Petersburg,
Tallinn, Turku and Kemi in Finland and Lulea, Sweden.
She said, as a precautionary measure, the ship was disinfected. There
appeared to be no connection between the passengers, she said.
The ship left Stockholm today with the remaining passengers.
Ms Hooper-Greenhill said the ship would cut short its trip and was
expected back in Dover, England on Monday afternoon.