Louis Ivory gets clean bill of health in Cyprus

Louis Cruise Lines announced that the lab tests on samples taken by the Cyprus Health Services from the Ivory came out clean and match the outcome of samples sent by the company to private labs, after a number of people were taken ill and hospitalized in Mytiline last week.

Samples were taken from the water, the food, stores and other areas to determine the cause of the illness, quite probably a virus.

The company added that the ship was inspected three times by the Greek health services, the Greek Ministry of Health, the Aegean District Administration, as well as the local health services in Mytiline and Kos and allowed the ship to continue on its cruise.

In all, 45 people had stayed behind in Mytilene, of whom only eight children and four adults were admitted to hospital. They remained on the island and returned home by a specially chartered plane to continue their treatment in clinics in Cyprus.

Louis undertook the whole cost of hospitalization and transport and said that the health of those who were ill had shown remarkable recovery.

However, it added that it is still trying to determine the source of the virus that was contained on board the ship as soon as initial symptoms of gastroenteritis were reported.

“Only two children were initially affected, but this soon spread to more and 28 children and adults visited the ship’s doctor,” said Louis Group chief executive Costakis Loizou.

“This is a Greek-flag ship, which means that any public and health official you can think of boarded the ship. After a thorough inspection it was allowed to continue its journey to Kos,” he said.

Hospital officials in Greece denied the illness was caused on board the ship and may have been carried on by persons affected before embarkation.