Mar 18 (THAINDIAN NEWS) For the third straight time, a cruise liner leaving out from South Carolina has returned with a ship full of sick people. The norovirus has struck again, this time attacking 369 of the over 1800 passengers which were on board. The ship has departed on March 8.

Hundreds of passengers became ill with the same virus on two other Mercury cruises during this year, coming out of Charleston SC. The virus is said to have a very short incubation period, which makes it possible for many people to get sick in a shirt amount of time. It spreads very fast in closed quarters, and is very known for sticking around and hard to get rid of. Most people who get the illness usually recover within one or two days. The symptoms are stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting.

According to Michael J. Kilby, a professor from Medical University of South Carolina, “Even the little bit of chlorine you find in the treated water we have in town and some swimming pools doesn’t seem enough to get it out of the environment,” he said. “It’s hard to know whether some passenger comes on board with it already or whether it is some place in the environment there already.”

The cruise line is bringing in 50 extra crew members to help clean and decontaminate the ship, as well as steam clean all of the carpets in all staterooms and public areas. A passenger, Beth Lawton said that the cruise line had done all they could to keep the illness from spreading during the cruise, “They just couldn’t have done more. They had clear plastic over all the food at the buffet line. You didn’t touch anything, they put stuff on your plate,” Lawton said. “At every doorway they had wipes or sprays.”