The well known cruise ship virus, the norovirus, can now cause problems on planes, as well as cruise ships. This is a virus that is well known to cause diarrhea and vomiting.

Just recently a flight from Boston to Los Angeles was diverted to Chicago shortly after take off after multiple passengers started to suffer from acute gastrointestinal illness. This was thought to be caused by the highly contagious norovirus. The ill passengers were members of a tour company’s New England fall foliage bus tour, who were returning home to California. Once in Chicago, the airline passengers not from the tour group boarded a different plane and continued their trip west. The other people had to stay overnight in Chicago, and several had to be hospitalized.

An investigation by the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the New Hampshire Department of Health in Concord found six confirmed norovirus infection cases among the tour group members on the plane. There was another nine probable cases.

Anyone that was sitting in an aisle seat or near a tour group member was at a very strong risk for becoming ill. This guess goes along with investigators’ thoughts that this virus spread throughout the plane by way of person-to-person contact or indirectly via contamination of armrests, tray tables, and controls.

Norovirus is known for really taking the fun out of being on a cruise ship. However, what a lot of people do not think about is the fact that people who just get off a cruise ship can pass it off to others. A plane, where people are all pushed together in a small area, is the perfect way for the virus to spread quickly.