Hantavirus Likely Spread Person-To-Person On Cruise Ship: WHO

The deadly hantavirus outbreak on a luxury cruise ship stranded in the Atlantic is believed to have spread from person to person, a rare occurrence for a virus usually spread by rodents, health officials said.

At a press conference held in Geneva, the World Health Organization said that the virus, which is responsible for the deaths of three people as of Tuesday, may have spread from person to person due to the close contact of passengers on the ship.

“This is certainly an unusual situation,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention. “WHO assesses the overall risk to the public to be low.”

Health officials are working under the assumption that the hantavirus strain in question is Andean virus because there is limited evidence that this specific strain can spread between humans. He said sequencing of the virus was ongoing in South Africa, which could take several days to complete.

MV Hondius set sail from Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 with approximately 150 people from more than 20 nationalities. The World Health Organization said it traveled across the South Atlantic with multiple stops in remote and ecologically diverse regions, including Antarctica, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena and Ascension Island.

One “working hypothesis” is that a couple who boarded the ship in Argentina and later died may have brought the virus aboard. That’s partly because the Andean virus, which the World Health Organization says can cause a serious respiratory illness with up to a 50% mortality rate, is endemic to South America, Van Kerkhove said.

“Given the incubation period of the hantavirus, which could be anywhere from one to six weeks, our assumption is that they were infected from the ship and perhaps engaged in some activity there,” he said. “It was an expedition boat and most of the people were birding, doing a lot of wildlife related things, so our assumption is that they got infected from the boat and then joined the trip.”

Another assumption is that other passengers contracted the virus during the ship’s visits to islands with large numbers of rodents. Human hantavirus infection is transmitted primarily through contact with the urine, feces, or saliva of infected rodents.

There have been seven cases (two laboratory confirmed, five suspected) and three deaths so far. WHO said three people with suspected cases remained on the ship.

The ship has been anchored off the coast of Cape Verde since Sunday, with the island nation not allowing its passengers to disembark and passengers being directed to stay in their cabins. Van Kerkhove said that after the medical evacuation of the two people on the ship is completed, the ship will go to the Canary Islands, where it will be cleaned and the passengers remaining on the ship will be examined.

Meanwhile, it was stated that those on the ship had plenty of food and water, and decontamination efforts were being carried out to limit the further spread of the virus.

“We heard from many people on the boat,” Van Kerkhove said. “We want you to know that we are working with the operators of the ship. We are working with the countries you are in. We hear you. We know you are afraid.”