The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) announced this Sunday (2) that it will investigate information on violations of anti-covid protocols on cruises, after outbreaks affected three ships sailing off the Brazilian coast.
“Failure to comply with sanitary protocols and disobedience to restriction measures imposed by the authorities constitute sanitary infractions that, if confirmed, result in fines and suspension of activities (of cruise lines),” warned Anvisa in a statement.
The agency said it would also reinforce Friday’s recommendation to the Ministry of Health to immediately suspend all cruises, given the global increase in covid-19 cases driven by the new omicron variant.
Brazil allowed cruises to resume in November, but ordered companies to implement strict protocols against covid-19, which included testing passengers and quarantining them in case of infection.
The announcement of the investigation comes after the registration of covid-19 outbreaks in three vessels off the Brazilian coast in the New Year.
Anvisa reported that 26 passengers and two crew tested positive on the MSC Preziosa, a 333-meter vessel that sailed off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
The vessel, with capacity for 4,000 passengers, was able to dock at the port of Rio.
The isolation of infected people and of those who came into contact with them was ordered, recalled Anvisa.
On December 30, health authorities suspended the operations of two other ships, the Costa Diadema and the MSC Splendida, after they also reported dozens of covid-19 cases on board.
The 306-metre Costa Diadema, which was in front of the city of Salvador, Bahia, was ordered to disembark 68 infected people and return to its home port in the city of Santos, on the coast of São Paulo, to enter into quarantine.
The 333-metre Splendida, which was heading to Rio de Janeiro, was also ordered to return to Santos after the registration of 78 cases.
The Swiss-Italian company MSC Cruises, whose Brazilian branch operates the Preziosa and Splendida, said in a statement that its ships “remain with the unchanged schedule of their future cruises.”
“In the current scenario, cruising is one of the safest vacation options in the world,” he argued. “No other sector of the travel and tourism industry has such a complete and robust protocol to contain the spread of infectious diseases.”
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