BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (Reuters) – Barbados and Grenada refused this week to allow passengers to leave a Spanish cruise ship owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd because of fears of an H1N1 flu outbreak, authorities and shipping sources said yesterday.
They added the moves were precautionary and that Grenadian and Barbadian authorities had no laboratory confirmation anyone on board was suffering from the H1N1 swine flu strain, declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization last week.
Many of the small island states in the eastern Caribbean depend on cruise ship arrivals as an important source of foreign exchange for their vulnerable economies.
On Monday, the Ocean Dream operated by Pullmantur Cruises docked in Grenada, but no one was permitted to leave the ship because of reports several people on board had flu-like symptoms, a spokesman for Grenada’s Health Ministry said.
The cruise liner’s next destination was Barbados on Tuesday, but the ship was not allowed to berth by Barbadian authorities because of the reports of the flu-like symptoms among its occupants, shipping agents in Bridgetown said.
Ocean Dream, which can carry more than 1,000 passengers, subsequently sailed for Margarita Island on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.
