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Over the past five years, an average of about 14 cruise ships a year have had outbreaks of diarrheal illness, and the culprit is almost always norovirus

The best way to avoid it is prevention, and the best prevention is hand washing.

The problem, he said, is passengers. “If Grandma is sick when she gets on, she’s going on the cruise anyway,” Dr. Vinjé said. “And that’s how the virus gets onboard. Then it lands on handrails and doorknobs, and the transmission continues.”

Some viruses, like influenza, are coated in lipids, “envelopes” that alcohol can rupture.

FDA already has approved the use of electron beam technology as a pathogen intervention strategy to control the naturally occurring Vibrio vulnificus bacterial pathogen in shellfish.

Praveen said she and the other researchers also chose the viral pathogens as opposed to bacterial as they were more difficult to treat and also require a host species.

if a serving size of 12 raw oysters were contaminated with approximately 100 hepatitis A and human noroviruses, an e-beam dose of 5 kGy (kilograys) would achieve a 91 percent reduction of hepatitis A infection risks and a 26 percent reduction of norovirus infection risks.

The industrial-size servings of food on a cruise ship with hundreds of passengers can be particularly worrisome, since once the virus enters the food it can spread rapidly. Food can also get more easily contaminated with the virus if it sits out for several hours, as is often the case with buffet-style meals.

And so many people being in one place eases the virus's spread. "In close quarters it doesn't get away, everything's concentrated," Zimring says.

The best defense against gastrointestinal disease, Zimring says, is to wash and sanitize your hands constantly

Passengers staggered off a Royal Caribbean ship reeking of vomit and diarrhea