A ship from the shipping company Ambassador Cruise Line in Hamburg (archive photo).image: www.imago-images.de
Passengers on a cruise ship in Bordeaux are quarantined following the death of a passenger and a suspected norovirus outbreak on board. A connection with the hantavirus was ruled out.
May 13, 2026, 3:17 p.mMay 13, 2026, 3:17 p.m
More than 1,700 people, many of them British and Irish, are in quarantine following the death of a passenger and a suspected norovirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship that arrived in Bordeaux, southwest France, on Tuesday evening, health authority sources revealed on Wednesday.
Of the 1,233 passengers, including the 90-year-old who died, around 50 showed other symptoms. Investigations are underway to possibly detect the presence of norovirus. According to the same source, there are also 514 crew members on board.
Health authorities are not ruling out the possibility of a food-borne problem and are dismissing a link to the hantavirus, which recently led to the deaths of three passengers aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship that was connecting Ushuaïa, Argentina, with the Cape Verde Islands.
No security measures on land
The Ambassador Cruise Line ship, which departed from the Shetland Islands (off the coast of Scotland) on May 6, made stops in Belfast, Liverpool and Brest (western France) before continuing to Bordeaux, from where it was normally scheduled to depart for Spain. On Wednesday afternoon it was in the port of Bordeaux in the city center, directly on the Garonne River, with no security measures in place on land. Passengers took photos of Bordeaux from the deck of the cruise ship.
Initial tests on board have ruled out the presence of norovirus, but further tests are underway at the Bordeaux hospital, health authorities said. The peak of symptoms – vomiting and diarrhea – occurred on May 11, when the ship was in Brest, the source said. The deceased, a Nonagenarian, died before arriving at port. (jzs/afp)
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