Almost 200 people have fallen ill in a norovirus outbreak on a cruise ship that left Southampton at the beginning of March, government data has revealed.

The Queen Mary 2 departed England on March 8 for New York before continuing eastern Caribbean, with stops in Barbados, St Lucia, and Grenada.

But in data released by the USA's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Vessel Sanitation Program (CDC) released on Monday, the agency said that 183 of the 2,538 travelling have fallen ill during the voyage.

This equates to about 7 per cent of total passengers, who will travel until the ship returns to Southampton on April 6.

Some 14 crew members of the 1,232 working on the luxury Cunard cruise ship also reported symptoms.

READ MORE: Cunard's Queen Mary 2 to join America's 250th anniversary celebrations

The CDC noted that the predominant symptoms were diarrhoea and vomiting.

In an email statement to Business Insider, a Cunard spokesperson confirmed that they were "continuing to closely monitor" guests on board.

The spokesperson said: "We are continuing to closely monitor the guests and, as a precaution, completed a comprehensive deep clean of the ship and immediately activated our enhanced health and safety protocols, which are proving to be effective."

In response to the outbreak, CDC said Cunard took measures such as "increased cleaning and disinfection procedures", "collected stool specimens" for testing and "isolated ill passengers and crew".

The 2,695-passenger Queen Mary 2 has served as Cunard's flagship since April 2004.

The ship is not set to return to Southampton until April 6 and the Echo has contacted Cunard for comment.