Worker who may have handled Ebola specimen on cruise
A health care worker who may have handled a specimen from the Liberian man who died from Ebola in Dallas is on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.
Industry giant Carnival says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified it late Wednesday that a passenger on the Texas-based Carnival Magic was a lab supervisor at the Dallas hospital where Thomas Eric Duncan died from the disease earlier this month.
Carnival says the unnamed woman has been placed in isolation on the ship and has shown no signs of illness.
"At no point in time has the individual exhibited any symptoms or signs of infection, and it has been 19 days since she was in the lab with the testing samples," Carnival said early Friday in a statement sent to USA TODAY. "She is deemed by CDC to be very low risk."
The Carnival Magic is one of the largest cruise ships in the Caribbean with a capacity for more than 4,000 passengers. It sails with more than 1,000 crew members.
Carnival says it is 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."
The Carnival Magic is on a seven-night cruise to the Western Caribbean that began Oct. 12 in Galveston, Texas. The ship called at the island of Roatan, Honduras on Wednesday and Belize City, Belize on Thursday. It had been scheduled to visit Cozumel, Mexico today before returning to Galveston on Sunday, but Carnival announced shortly after noon that the ship had skipped the port call after failing to get clearance from local authorities.
"The Carnival Magic, which was waiting off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico this morning to dock there for a scheduled port visit, had not received clearance from Mexican authorities to do so by 12 noon eastern time today, and therefore the decision was made to proceed to Galveston to ensure the ship arrives there on time on Sunday morning," the lines says in a statement sent to USA TODAY.
Carnival says every passenger on board will receive a $200 per person shipboard credit in compensation for the missed call as well as a 50% discount on a future cruise.
"We greatly regret that this situation, which was completely beyond our control, precluded the ship from making its scheduled visit to Cozumel and the resulting disappointment it has caused our guests," the line says in the statement. "The Texas healthcare worker on board continues to show no symptoms of illness and poses no risk to the guests or crew on board."
Belize's 7 News reports the Belize government refused a U.S. request Thursday to let the health care worker disembark in Belize so she could be flown home by air ambulance from a local airport.