Investigation Update on the Volendam

Cruise Line: Holland America

Cruise Ship: Volendam

Voyage Dates: July 19 – July 26, 2017

Number of passengers who have reported being ill during the voyage out of total number of passengers onboard: 46 of 1,473 (3.12%)

Number of crew who have reported being ill during the voyage out of total number of crew onboard: 10 of 620 (1.61%)

Predominant symptoms: vomiting, diarrhea

Causative agent: unknown

Actions: In response to the outbreak, Holland America and the crew aboard the ship reported the following actions:

• Increasing cleaning and disinfection procedures according to their outbreak prevention and response plan,
• Collecting stool specimens from passenger and crew gastrointestinal illness cases for testing, and
• Making daily reports of gastrointestinal illness cases to VSP.

The VSP epidemiologist and  environmental health officers will board the ship on arrival in Juneau on July 28, 2017, to evaluate the outbreak and conduct an environmental assessment.

Note: The gastrointestinal illness cases reported are totals for the entire voyage and do not represent the number of active (symptomatic) gastrointestinal cases at any given port of call or at disembarkation.