Ebola Worries Hit Caribbean Cruise
A health care worker is quarantined on the Carnival Magic due to concerns about the Ebola virus. The woman is a lab supervisor at the hospital in Dallas where Thomas Eric Duncan died. She may have handled lab specimens from Duncan 19 days ago. According to published reports, Carnival was notified about its passenger by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday. The government is currently trying to bring the passenger and her husband home. A request to the government of Belize for assistance was denied.
Belize officials refused a U.S. government request to let the woman disembark on Thursday to be flown home. The woman hasn’t shown any symptoms, is in isolation and deemed by the CDC to be “very low risk,” according to a Carnival Cruise Lines statement. “We are in close contact with the CDC and at this time it has been determined that the appropriate course of action is to simply keep the guest in isolation on board,” said Carnival. The Texas-based Carnival Magic is on a seven-night Western Caribbean cruise.
--Ana Figuroa