A highly contagious virus has struck down scores of passengers on board another P&O luxury cruise ship.

About 200 passengers on board the Oceana ship have contracted the norovirus, which caused chaos on P&O’s Aurora vessel in 2003 and led to a diplomatic incident with Spain.

The company said that about 10 per cent of the 2,015 passengers on board the five-year-old Oceana had been affected by the 24-hour bug, which causes diarrhoea and vomiting. Around 130 passengers are still ill and have been isolated in their cabins.

The ship left Southampton on May 19 for a 17-night Mediterranean cruise. It is due back in port on June 5 and is today travelling from Naples to the Croatian port of Dubrovnik.

A spokeswoman for the firm said the 77,000-tonne vessel was undergoing an "extensive programme" of sanitation and disinfection to try and stop the spread of the virus.

She said: "There has been an incident of gastrointestinal illness among passengers on board the current sailing of Oceana. Passengers unwell are being asked to isolate themselves in their cabins for as long as necessary."

She said that those who were isolated in their cabins would receive compensation and added that American research had shown that the chances of catching the virus on land was 1 in 12 compared to 1 in 4,000 on a cruise.

The spokeswoman said the virus had probably been brought on board by a passenger. In 2003, 500 out of 1,800 passengers aboard the Aurora suffered serious stomach upsets caused by what was then a new variant of the norovirus.

The £200 million ship was banned from docking in Greece while Spain sealed its borders with Gibraltar for the first time since 1985, after the ship docked at the British colony.

British and Gibraltarian politicians condemned the Spanish actions as unnecessary and disproportionate, but the border was not reopened until the ship had set sail again for Southampton.

During 2002 the bug had caused record levels of food poisoning across Europe and affected 11 cruise ships leaving British ports during the year.

In April Caledonian MacBrayne were forced to suspend sailings after passengers and crew members on two luxury ferries became ill from a mystery virus. In the same month 30 passengers and crew members aboard the five-star Hebridean Princess cruise ship were struck down by a bug.

The company said the virus may have come from an island visited by both boats which were visiting several islands on the west coast of Scotland.

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