Seven cases of deadly hantavirus confirmed or suspected on stranded cruise ship
By Charlotte Van Campenhout
AMSTERDAM, May 5 (Reuters) – Two cases of fatal hantavirus have been confirmed and five more cases are suspected among people who fell ill on a cruise ship that was stranded off the Cape Verde Islands and unable to get passengers ashore, the World Health Organization said.
In the most detailed update on the outbreak published late Monday, the U.N. health agency said the risk to the wider public was low from a disease that spreads mainly from infected rodents and is rarely transmitted between humans.
However, he added that limited human-to-human transmission has been reported in some strains of the virus.
Authorities in Cape Verde, an island country in the Atlantic off the coast of West Africa, said they did not allow the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius to dock as a precaution.
3 PEOPLE DIED, ABOUT 150 people were trapped on the ship
About 150 people were stranded on the Hondius, which was carrying mostly British, American and Spanish passengers on a luxury cruise that set off from the southern tip of Argentina in late March. The cruise visited the Antarctic peninsula, South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha, some of the most remote islands on the planet.
The seven confirmed or suspected cases include three people who have died, one critically ill patient and three with mild symptoms, WHO said.
Authorities said the three people who died were a Dutch couple and a German citizen, while a British citizen was evacuated from the ship and was in intensive care in South Africa.
WHO SAYS: LOW RISK IN THE WIDER PUBLIC
WHO stated that as a precaution, passengers on the Hondius ship were instructed to stay in their cabins as much as possible, and said that the incubation period may last several weeks, which means some people may not yet show symptoms.
The World Health Organization said that epidemiological investigations are continuing to determine the source of the epidemic. Medical teams in Cape Verde are evaluating patients and collecting additional samples for testing.
WHO added that although rare, human-to-human transmission of Andean virus, a type of hantavirus found in Argentina and Chile, has been limited but “has been reported in community settings with close and prolonged contact.”
The first Dutch couple to die had traveled through South America, including Argentina, before boarding the cruise ship.
WE ARE LOOKING FOR A SAFE PORT
The ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said authorities were working on a plan to medically evacuate the two sick people on board, as well as one of the passengers traveling with one of the deceased passengers.
The company said there are no definitive plans yet to disembark guests staying on the ship. He only confirmed that it would not be held in Cape Verde.
“It is being considered to sail to Las Palmas or Tenerife, where further medical screening and interventions can be carried out, organized and supervised by the WHO and Dutch health services. This has not yet been confirmed,” he said.
A spokesman for the Spanish Ministry of Health told Reuters that there had been no requests to dock in the Canary Islands yet.
TRAVEL HAS STARTED IN SOUTHERN ARGENTINA
Hondius left Ushuaia in southern Argentina in March on a trip marketed as an Antarctic nature cruise, with mooring prices ranging from 14,000 to 22,000 euros ($16,000 to $25,000), according to company documents.
The first affected passenger, a Dutch man, died on April 11. Oceanwide Expeditions said his body remained on the ship until April 24, when he “disembarked at St Helena where he accompanied his wife back to her country.”
His wife, who had gastrointestinal symptoms when she disembarked, later deteriorated during her flight to Johannesburg. He died on arrival at the emergency room on April 26, the WHO said, adding that contact tracing was ongoing for passengers on that flight.
South African officials have confirmed that a British patient being treated at a hospital in Johannesburg has tested positive for hantavirus. The Netherlands confirmed that the virus was detected in the deceased Dutch woman.
(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru and Charlotte Van Campenhout in Amsterdam; Additional reporting by David Latona and Monica Naime; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Nia Williams and Andrew Heavens)
