What Is Hantavirus? Rare Rodent-Borne Disease Behind Cruise Ship Outbreak Explained

The ship, which was at the center of the deadly epidemic, set out from Cape Verde towards Spain’s Canary Islands with approximately 150 people.

Footage from The Associated Press showed medical workers in protective gear evacuating three passengers, including the British doctor on board, who Spain’s health ministry said was in “serious condition” but recovering. Then the air ambulance took off.

The World Health Organization said three people died and one body remained on the ship. Five of the eight recorded cases were confirmed by laboratory tests.

Hantavirus is usually spread through inhalation of contaminated rodent feces and can be transmitted from person to person, but this is rare. According to the WHO, its top epidemiologist said the risk to the public was low.

Health authorities in Europe and Africa are trying to identify people who may have come into contact with people who left the ship on April 1, which called from South America to Antarctica and several remote Atlantic islands.

Two Argentine officials investigating the origins of the outbreak said the government’s leading hypothesis was that a Dutch couple caught the virus while watching birds in the city of Ushuaia before boarding the plane.

They said the couple visited a landfill during the tour and may have been exposed to rodents. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media while the investigation is ongoing. Officials have previously said that Ushuaia and the surrounding Tierra del Fuego province has never recorded a case of hantavirus.

Officials say those still on board are asymptomatic

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The Dutch foreign ministry said the three people evacuated were a 41-year-old Dutch citizen, a 56-year-old British citizen and a 65-year-old German citizen, and that they would be transferred to private hospitals in Europe.

WHO said on Wednesday that tests in Senegal confirmed that two of the evacuees were infected with hantavirus.

Dutch ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said two of the evacuees were in a “serious” condition and the third had no symptoms but was “closely related” to a German passenger who died aboard the MV Hondius on May 2.

Passengers and crew still on the ship were asymptomatic and were quarantined in their cabins, health officials said.

Their journey to the Canary Islands will take three or four days, Spain’s health ministry said, adding that the arrival “will not pose any risk to the public.”

Still, Canary Islands regional president Fernando Clavijo said he was concerned about the risk to the public and requested a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

WHO expert says this is not the ‘next Covid’

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Authorities said the passengers tested positive for Andes virus, a type of hantavirus found in South America, primarily in Argentina and Chile.

The virus can spread between people, but this is rare and only through close contact, according to the World Health Organization. The health agency has not seen any hantavirus outbreaks on any ships.

“This is not the next Covid-19, but it is a serious infectious disease,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s chief epidemiologist. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”

Van Kerkhove said two Dutch infectious disease experts will come on board. Access to clinical care is important, he said, because infected people can experience severe acute respiratory distress and need oxygen or mechanical ventilation. The hantavirus incubation period can be one to six weeks or longer, he said.

The ship’s route includes the Antarctic mainland and South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. It included stops throughout the South Atlantic, including the remote islands of Helena and Ascension.

Authorities rush to determine passenger’s journey after leaving ship

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Authorities in Switzerland said a former passenger who tested positive was being treated at a hospital in Zurich. South African authorities had previously announced that two passengers transferred there tested positive. A British man was in intensive care; the other collapsed and died in South Africa.

Simon Ming, spokesman for the Swiss medical office, said the patient there was from St. He said he abandoned ship at the Helena stop. It was unclear when and how he got to Switzerland and how many other countries he might have passed through.

In the statement made by the office, it was stated that the patient’s wife did not show symptoms but quarantined herself as a precaution.

“There is currently no risk to the Swiss public,” the office said while investigating whether the patient had been in contact with others.

South Africa is looking for contacts

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St. On Helena, the body of the Dutch man suspected of being the first case of hantavirus on board was removed from the ship. His wife flew to South Africa, where she collapsed and died at Johannesburg airport.

A British man was later evacuated from Ascension Island and taken to South Africa.

The ship’s operator did not say whether other people were separated at this or other locations.

South Africa’s Department of Health said authorities had tracked down 42 of the 62 people, including healthcare workers, and believed they had been in contact with two infected travelers who had traveled there. 42 people tested negative for hantavirus.

But 20 people still need to be traced, including five people who were flying to South Africa with some passengers as well as members of the flight crew.

Some may have now traveled abroad, the ministry said.