Widespread illness causes Mississippi Queen to evacuate in Cape

The Mississippi Queen evacuated all 500-plus passengers Monday afternoon at Cape Girardeau, with health-care officials citing an as-yet unidentified contagious intestinal virus.

Sixteen passengers were suffering from flu-like symptoms, one severe enough to be taken to a local hospital for observation. The rest were taken to a Cape Girardeau hotel until Tuesday morning, said Charlotte Craig, director of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center.

The rest of the passengers were bused to St. Louis, where the week-long cruise was supposed to end on Wednesday. More than 100 passengers have taken ill, with the rest of them leaving the boat at previous stops. On Friday, a team of officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration got on board to monitor the passengers.

A CDC official said Monday that none of the illnesses were life-threatening and that the virus symptoms -- nausea, vomiting, mild fever and diarrhea -- tended to last no longer than 24 hours. The boat was evacuated, the official said, as a precautionary measure.

An epidemiologist with the CDC said stool samples have been collected to try to isolate the nature of the illness.

Karen Leopold of San Diego was taking the cruise with her parents and two sisters to celebrate their parents' birthday. None of them got sick, Leopold said.

"We didn't really see anybody get sick," she said before boarding a bus. "We heard about people getting sick and I heard that a lady got sick at the dinner table. ... It's disappointing, but the trip ended Wednesday anyway."

The boat was expected to depart by 5 p.m. Monday to return crew members to St. Louis.

~For more details, read Tuesday's Southeast Missourian.