Dirty Cruise Ship Toilets cause Holiday Accident Claim
When people think about the danger of food poisoning on food ships, they usually consider the food to be the real risk factor. Many people enquire about food hygiene certificates and the health and safety standards within the kitchen. Other avoids ‘high risk’ foods like shellfish and refuse to drink tap water on board the cruise liner.
Very few tourists consider the humble toilet as the source of the problem. Yet a recent research project led by scientists from Boston University has shown that poor standards of cleanliness on cruise ships toilets are as much to blame for food poisoning outbreaks as any underdone prawns.
The project was the first ever study to examine ‘environmental hygiene’ outside of the kitchen cruise ships. The project began after it was discovered that the ‘food poisoning outbreaks’ that break out in cruise shops are caused by ‘norovirus’ – rather than through eating spoiled food. Gastroenteritis (stomach upsets) is most easily transmitted from fecal bacteria, usually through touching an infected persons hand, or an object they’d recently touched. Yet despite industry clampdowns on hand washing of all staff members – norovirus outbreaks remain high. Scientists wondered if poor cleaning was to blame.
To discover the root cause of the food poisoning outbreak the scientists monitored several ‘hot spots’ in toilet cubicles.
Health care professionals monitored six standardized objects (toilet seat, flush handle, toilet stall inner handhold, stall inner door handle, restroom inner door handle, and baby changing table surfaces) and took regular samples of bacterial levels.
The study found that
Only 37 percent of the 273 randomly selected public toilets were cleaned daily.
Some objects were cleaned at least daily, but on 275 occasions no objects in a restroom were cleaned for at least 24 hours.
The toilet seat was the best-cleaned object.
The least cleaned object was the baby changing table.
Shockingly, 19 objects in 13 ships were not cleaned at all in the week long monitoring period.
The report, which appeared in the journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases, concluded that hand washing alone isn’t enough, and that a more thorough cleaning of toilets and restrooms is an often overlooked way to prevent food poisoning from spreading like wildfire throughout the entire cruise ship.