Cruise Ship Quarantined In St. Lucia Over Confirmed Measles Case

Nearly 300 people are being quarantined on a cruise ship at the St. Lucia port in the Caribbean after a crew member was confirmed to have measles.

Dr. Merlene Fredericks-James, St. Lucia’s chief medical officer, confirmed the quarantine on Monday in a filmed statement but did not reveal the name of the cruise ship. Neither crew members nor passengers were allowed to leave the ship during the quarantine.

The infected person is a female crew member, NBC News reported.

“One infected person can easily infect others through coughing, sneezing, droplets being on different surfaces, etc.,” Fredericks-James said in a filmed statement on Monday. “Because of the risk of potential infection, not just from the confirmed measles case but from other persons who may be on the boat at the time. We thought it prudent…to not let anyone on the boat disembark.”

Fredericks-James told NBC News on Tuesday that it is likely that other people may have been exposed to the measles on the boat.

Fredericks-James didn’t disclose the name of the cruise ship in her statement on Monday, but St. Lucia Coast Guard Sgt. Victor Theodore told CNBC on Wednesday that a cruise ship named Freewinds was currently docked at the island. 

The Church of Scientology operates a cruise ship by name of Freewinds based in the Caribbean, where it holds religious retreats “ministering the most advanced level of spiritual counseling in the Scientology religion,” according to the church’s website. HuffPost has reached out to the church for comment.

In an interview with St. Lucia News Online, the country’s acting National Epidemiologist Dr. Michelle Francois said that the island has been free of any locally-transmitted cases of measles since 1990. 

Speaking to the press on Monday, Fredericks-James noted the recent measle outbreak in the U.S. that has hit 22 states.

This is “largely because persons have not been taking the vaccine because there is a vaccine that protects the person from getting measles,” she said.

The number of measles cases in the U.S. has hit a new high with a total of 704 cases as of this April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week.