More than 300 passengers and crew on the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 have caught the highly infectious norovirus during a world cruise.

In what health officials have called an unusually large outbreak, nearly 17 per cent of the 1,652 predominantly American passengers on the Cunard Line’s flagship were confined to their cabins for two or three days by the bug that causes vomiting and diarrhoea.

The ship left Southampton on January 2 and called at New York six days later, where she picked up new passengers. Medical staff had dealt with 276 sick passengers and 28 crew by the time she docked in San Francisco on Wednesday.

American officials from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) boarded the QE2 to investigate the outbreak and certified that emergency sanitation measures carried out by the crew were satisfactory. These included disinfecting casino chips and halting self-service at the ship’s buffet.

As the 70,327-tonne ship sailed for Honolulu yesterday, only a handful of passengers remained on the sick list.

The outbreak of the norovirus, one of the commonest causes of gastroenteritis, is the latest to strike cruise ships, but the first to affect the QE2, where prices for the 106-day world trip range from about £10,000 to £70,000.

Jaret Ames, the acting head of the CDC vessel sanitation programme, said of the flare-up: “This one was a good example where they had a lot of cases but they did gain control over the spread of infection.”

By comparison, a norovirus outbreak last month aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, infected 338 passengers out of 3,823, or less than 9 per cent.

In Miami, Brian O’Connor, a spokesman for Cunard Line, said that no passengers had cancelled their reservations as a result of the outbreak.

It took hold when the ship left New York, and the likeliest source was a passenger embarking there.

Eric Flounders, a spokesman for Cunard Line in London, said: “We implemented a hygiene protocol designed to combat an outbreak, and that worked.

“People have been advised on measures they should take. We have encouraged handwashing. Where people display symptoms they are kept confined in their cabin until the symptoms subside.”

The new age of ocean cruising has proved the perfect breeding ground for the norovirus, which thrives in closed communities and spreads rapidly. The arrival of new passengers every few days can make infection difficult to eradicate.

The Health Protection Agency said: “Norovirus is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in England and Wales. The disease was historically known as ‘winter vomiting disease’ due to its seasonality and typical symptoms.”

The QE2, which set off on her maiden voyage in 1969, cost £29,091,000 to build, but about 15 times that amount has been spent in refitting her.

She has sailed 5.5 million nautical miles, equivalent to travelling to the Moon and back 13 times and has carried more than two million passengers and completed 24 world cruises.

In May 2005 more than 200 passengers on the P&O cruise ship Oceana were stricken and isolated after the norovirus struck her during a 17-night Mediterranean cruise. The same virus struck 600 passengers on board the P&O ship Aurora in 2003.

Beat the virus

The infection, which ranks second only to the common cold in reported cases, usually clears up in two or three days

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