A cruise ship is waiting for help after a suspected outbreak of rare hantavirus onboard killed 3
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — a Dutch cruise ship The ship, with about 150 people on board, including 17 Americans, was waiting for help off the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday after a suspected outbreak. rare hantavirus It killed three passengers and left at least three seriously ill. World Health Organization and the ship’s operator said.
It was stated that MV Hondius, which went on a week-long polar journey from Argentina to Antarctica and then to several isolated islands in the South Atlantic, requested help from local health authorities on Sunday after setting out for the Cape Verde island off the West African coast, but no one from the company operating the ship has been allowed to land yet.
The operator said on Monday that there were 88 passengers on board, one of whom died, and 61 crew members, including two who were sick. 17 of the passengers were Americans, 19 were from the UK and 13 were from Spain, along with other nationalities.
The three passengers who died were from the Netherlands and Germany. The German remains on board. A British man is in intensive care in South Africa.
A 70-year-old Dutch man who presented with fever, headache, abdominal pain and diarrhea was the first victim and died on the ship on April 11, the ship’s Netherlands-based operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said in a statement providing new details. His body was removed from the ship nearly two weeks later at Saint Helena, a British territory about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) off the coast of Africa, and was awaiting repatriation.
His wife, 69, was also transferred to South Africa at the same time but collapsed at Johannesburg airport and died at a nearby hospital, South Africa’s Department of Health said.
The ship then sailed for Ascension Island, another isolated Atlantic outpost about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) north, where a sick British man was disembarked and evacuated to South Africa on 27 April. South Africa’s health department said he later tested positive for hantavirus, a rare infection spread by rodents that can cause serious respiratory illness or hemorrhagic fever.
His condition is critical and he is currently in intensive care at a hospital in South Africa, where he is being kept isolated, officials said.
A third passenger died on the plane on Saturday and was identified as a German citizen. The ship operator said the body was still on board. Three deaths have not yet been confirmed to be hantavirus, as the only person confirmed to have the virus was a man in intensive care in South Africa.
WHO said only one case of hantavirus was confirmed by tests, while five other cases were suspected to be hantavirus.
Cruise ship asks for help from Cape Verde
Oceanwide said two crew members still aboard the Hondius – one British, one Dutch – needed urgent medical care, adding that it was awaiting permission from local authorities in Cape Verde on Monday to evacuate passengers and crew. The company said it was considering moving to the Spanish islands of Las Palmas or Tenerife if it couldn’t get people off the ship in Cape Verde.
The World Health Organization said Sunday it was working with local authorities and ship operators to conduct a “full public health risk assessment” and was trying to coordinate the evacuation of two sick people from the ship.
“Detailed investigations, including further laboratory testing and epidemiological studies, are ongoing,” WHO said. “Medical care and support is being provided to passengers and crew. Sequencing of the virus is also ongoing.”
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said that it was investigating the possibility of evacuating some people from the ship.
A Dutch organization called On Behalf of the Family published a comment from relatives of a Dutch couple who said they were on a cruise and died in April.
The statement said, without identifying the family, “The beautiful journey they lived together was suddenly and definitively cut short. … We want to return them to their home and remember them in peace and privacy.”
Hantavirus is rare and does not spread often from person to person
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses found throughout the world, spread primarily through contact with the urine or feces of infected rodents such as rats and mice. They attracted attention after becoming actors Gene Hackman his wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from hantavirus infection in New Mexico last year. She was not immediately found, and her sick husband died of heart disease about a week later.
The World Health Organization has said that in rare cases, hantavirus infections can spread between people. There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical intervention can increase the chances of survival.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hantaviruses cause two serious syndromes: hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which affects the lungs, and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which affects the kidneys.
WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr. “Although it can be severe in some cases, it is not easily transmitted between people,” Hans Henri P. Kluge said Monday. “The risk to the general public remains low. There is no need for panic or travel restrictions.”
The week-long journey started in Argentina
South Africa’s Ministry of Health said the ship left Ushuaia in the south Argentina For a cruise that includes visits to Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and other isolated islands in the South Atlantic.
While Oceanwide Expeditions doesn’t say exactly which cruise the ship is on, its website advertises 33-night or 43-night “Atlantic Odyssey” cruises on the 107-meter (351-foot) long Hondius that follow that route.
The Hondius has 80 cabins and a passenger capacity of 170, the company said. It was stated that he usually travels with about 70 crew members, including a doctor.
A previous hantavirus outbreak in southern Argentina in 2019 killed at least nine people, although there was no information from authorities about the possible source of the suspected outbreak. This led a judge to order dozens of residents of a remote town to stay in their homes for 30 days to stop the spread.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases was conducting contact tracing in the Johannesburg area to determine whether others in South Africa had been exposed to infected cruise ship passengers. The deceased 69-year-old woman collapsed while trying to catch a flight back to the Netherlands from Johannesburg’s main international airport, which is considered the busiest airport in Africa.
“There is no need for the public to panic,” South Africa’s health department said, adding that WHO was “coordinating a multi-country response with all affected islands and countries to contain further spread of the disease.”
———
AP writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.
