Carnival Cruise Lines issued a statement shortly before noon Dallas time Friday that the ship Carnival Magic was returning to Galveston after failing to receive clearance from Mexican authorities to dock in the port of Cozumel.
The U.S. State Department had announced early Friday morning that one of the passengers aboard the ship was a Dallas health care worker who may have handled a lab specimen from a Liberian man who died from Ebola. Offiicals said the woman had self-quarantined aboard the ship after learing of stricter CDC monitoring guidelines and was being monitored for infection.
Carnival said in its statement that passengers would be credited $200 each to their shipboard accounts and would receieve a 50 percent discount applicable to a future cruise based on the missed visit to Cozumel.
The ship had previously stopped in Belize, but officials there would not allow the passenger to leave the vessel. In a statement, the Belize government said it had refused a U.S. government request to fly the woman home through the Belize City airport.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement Friday that the woman had shown no signs of the disease and has been asymptomatic for 19 days, .
“Out of an abundance of caution, the government of Belize decided not to facilitate a U.S. request for assistance in evacuating the passenger through the Philip Goldson International Airport,” the statement said.
U.S. officials were seeking ways to return the woman and her husband to the U.S. before the ship completes its cruise on Sunday.
“We are working with the cruise line to safely bring them back to the United States out of an abundance of caution,” Psaki said.
Psaki said that when the woman left the U.S. on the cruise ship from Galveston, Texas, on Oct. 12 health officials were requiring only self-monitoring.
Carnival Cruise Lines said in a statement that the woman, a lab supervisor, remained in isolation “and is not deemed to be a risk to any guests or crew.”
“We are in close contact with the CDC, and at this time it has been determined that the appropriate course of action is to simply keep the guest in isolation on board,” the statement said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A spokeswoman for the cruise line, Jennifer De La Cruz, said that when the Magic made a port call in Belize, other passengers were allowed to disembark with the exception of the health care worker and her spouse.
De La Cruz said the ship is scheduled to return to Galveston on Sunday morning as scheduled, adding that there has been no change to the ship’s itinerary.
There have been no restrictions placed on other passengers aboard the ship, officials said.
Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnnenn and Dallas Morning News staff contributed to this report.
