Cherinet Seid, MD LMCC CCFP
Clinical Fellow, University of Ottawa
Introduction
Cruise ship travel is a significantly growing mode of travel; 11.7 million people took cruise vacation world wide in 2006 - representing about 7% of all forms of travel1. Cruise ships are bringing passengers and crew members with diversity of culture, medical conditions and immunization statuses from all around the world. This in addition to close proximity of passengers and crew members creates a favourable environment for transmission of infectious diseases.
Non infectious problems include injuries, motion sickness, and exacerbation of pre existing medical conditions. Both infectious and non infectious hazards will be discussed further.
Cruise ship travel – Health risks
The average duration of cruise ship travel is 7 days ranging from several hours to months depending on purpose of travel1. People older than 65 comprise one –third of cruise ship travellers and one half of cruise ship infirmary visits. Along with pre existing chronic illnesses this population is at increased risk from complications of both infectious and non infectious problems. Overall 1 in 250 cruise ship passengers experience an illness while on board that requires medical attention4. Although many cruise ship travels today have basic medical services they do not have immediate back up services such as surgery, blood transfusion and detailed laboratory and radiological investigations. Medical evacuation is dependent up on the ships position at sea, the sailing itinerary and next port of call5.
*A retrospective descriptive study in a calendar year on 4 ships of a major cruise ship line with cruises originating in US. 7147 new patient visits occurred in a population of 196,171 passengers and 1,537,298 passenger days. 51% of the infirmary visitors were older than 64 years, while only 39% of overall passengers were older than that age.