Thousands of passengers aboard the Costa Smeralda were initially prevented from disembarking when they arrived in the port of Civitavecchia, a city close to Rome, on Thursday because of a suspected coronavirus case on board.
A 54-year-old woman and her husband were quarantined on the ship, in its hospital ward, after she developed a fever and flu-like symptoms. The couple had flown to Italy from Macau, on the south coast of China, to join the week-long Mediterranean cruise.
According to a report in The Guardian, three doctors and a nurse boarded the ship and took samples, which were sent for testing at Rome’s Lazzaro Spallanzani national institute for infectious diseases.
Preliminary tests on the couple suggested that they were not infected with the virus, although conclusive results would take up to 48 hours, said the Italian Ministry of Health.
The ship was locked down on Thursday and the 6,000 passengers had to stay on board including the 1,140 passengers who were at the end of their trip.
‘As soon as the suspected case emerged, medical staff onboard immediately activated the necessary health procedures for cases of this kind,’ Costa Crociere, the company which operates the ship, said in a statement.
According to the BBC, passengers were allowed to disembark late on Thursday night.
In a separate development, MSC Cruises has announced that it is taking further precautionary measures on all of its global fleet to protect the health of its passengers. One of the measures includes preventing anyone who has travelled from or visited mainland China from boarding their ships.
The full list of measure that MSC Cruises listed in a press statement are found below:
- ‘Guests from all nationalities are required to fill out a pre-embarkation questionnaire to ensure no-one who has travelled from mainland China or visited mainland China in the past 30 days boards their ship. Anyone who has travelled from mainland China or visited mainland China in the past 30 days will be denied access to the ship;
- Mandatory non-touch thermal scans are conducted for all guests and crew prior to embarkation for every cruise operated by the company anywhere in the world. Persons with signs or symptoms of illness such as fever (≥38 C°) or feverishness, chills, cough or difficulty breathing will be denied embarkation;
- There is elevated deep-sanitation on every ship in the line’s entire fleet;
- Guests who may have fever symptoms will be isolated in their cabin and the same measure will apply to their close contacts, including guests staying in the same cabin and family members, as well as any crew member who may have served these guests.’
MSC Cruises says that ‘all guests and crew who travelled last week from mainland China were already screened for symptoms’ and that it is following the advice of both international and local health authorities.
Image: Costa Smeralda
