After months of norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships, a smoothie is finally implicatedCDC investigators finally traced the norovirus — not coronavirus — illnesses last year back to a smoothie made with frozen raspberries.It was a whodunit on the high seas: For several months in the summer of 2019, a handful passengers on 10 European cruises came down with acute stomach bugs.
The passengers were on different ships that departed from July to September. All of the patients, however, were on ships from the same cruise line and had the same symptoms: a rapid onset of vomiting and diarrhea that lasted about 24 hours.
Sick passengers were asked to fill out food questionnaires, and on the second ship, 80 percent said they had consumed a smoothie made from frozen fruits and berries. Further testing of the frozen fruit found that the raspberries, along with the tropical fruit cocktail and the berry mix, tested positive for norovirus.
The same berries were found on both ships, the CDC report concluded. In fact,
further investigation revealed that the cruise line had purchased nearly 22,000 pounds of frozen raspberries from a single supplier in China beginning in June 2019. The findings led the World Health Organization to issue a recall for the frozen raspberries in November 2019.
After the frozen raspberries were removed from the ships, no further outbreaks were reported.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/after-months-norovirus-outbreaks-cruise-ships-smoothie-finally-implicated-n1190031?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR25ovujGo3JJxkpJeM-iXvgqzPzN4odXP7syoYAKQfFJBA_dugWekQ5zls
