A cruise ship on Egypt’s River Nile, carrying some 150 tourists and crew, has been quarantined and 45 people aboard have tested positive for the deadly coronavirus, country’s health authorities have said.
Egyptian Health Minister Hala Zayed confirmed 33 new cases of coronavirus aboard the cruise vessel on Saturday. The virus cluster had been discovered a day before, when 12 crewmembers of the ship, which was travelling between Luxor and Aswan, tested positive for the coronavirus.
Of the total 45 infected, 19 people are foreign tourists, but the officials did not elaborate on the nationalities of the patients. The cruise ship outbreak made the Egyptian coronavirus statistics skyrocket — before it, Cairo reported only three cases of the disease across the country.
The vessel made several stops along is way, thus the number of people exposed to the virus might grow even further, prompting fears of a large-scale outbreak in Egypt.
Taking cruises amid the global coronavirus spread might not be the best idea, as hundreds of ship passengers have lately discovered. The tightly-packed liners have proven to be perfect environment for mass viral transmissions.
Cruise ship ‘Diamond Princess’ has remained quarantined for nearly a month in Japan, after some 700 of its 3,700 passengers and crew had become infected, including seven people who died. Another outbreak occurred off the coast of San Francisco earlier this week — there, 21 people tested positive for the Covid-19 aboard the ‘Grand Princess.’ The large vessel has over 3,000 people trapped inside, unsure whether they contracted the dreaded disease or not.
