PARIS: An Italian cruise ship that disembarked 639 of its more than 1,420 passengers in the southern French port of Marseille on Thursday had 36 people on board infected with the coronavirus, the Marseille area prefecture said on Friday (Mar 20).

It added that one passenger who had been on the Costa Luminosa, a Swiss national aged more than 70, had been transported to a Marseille hospital.



A prefecture official said he could not comment on how many of those infected had disembarked and flown home and how many were still on the ship, which was heading to the Italian port of Savona on Friday evening.

The Costa Luminosa had left Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Mar 5 on a cruise destined for Venice, Italy. But days later it had to disembark two passengers in Puerto Rico who later tested positive for the coronavirus. It also unloaded four sick passengers on the Canary island of Tenerife.

The prefecture said in a statement that before docking in Marseille, the ship had declared to authorities that 75 people had symptoms of coronavirus infection or had been in contact with people with coronavirus.

