Cruise Ship With Hantavirus Seeks Port, Faces Pushback
(Bloomberg) — Three people suspected of carrying hantavirus were evacuated from a ship near Cape Verde off Africa’s west coast while Spain’s Canary Islands is pushing back on allowing the vessel grappling with the deadly outbreak to dock there.
The evacuation from the MV Hondius cruise ship took place on Wednesday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X, adding that “the overall public-health risk remains low.”
The vessel, carrying almost 150 passengers, will be joined by two infectious-disease experts. It’s slated to start sailing toward the Canary Islands, according to Dutch operator Oceanwide Expeditions BV and the World Health Organization. But the Spanish archipelago appears to be pushing back.
The Canary Islands’ government, which oversees health care in the territory, said it hasn’t received an official request from Spain’s central administration for the ship to dock at one of its ports, with regional President Fernando Clavijo seeking an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
“We don’t know why passengers have to spend three days sailing to a Canary port when they could be evacuated by air from Praia International Airport” in Cape Verde, Clavijo said on TVE, the Spanish public television channel.
People can become infected with hantavirus by inhaling contaminated particles, often in enclosed spaces with rodent droppings. The ship departed southern Argentina in early April and visited remote islands in the South Atlantic before the outbreak emerged.
Severe cases can lead to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, causing fluid buildup in the lungs. Early symptoms resemble flu but can worsen quickly. The overall public risk is considered low, as person-to-person transmission is unusual.
The first patient, a Dutch man, and his wife traveled in South America before boarding the ship in Argentina on April 1. Both have since died.
Swiss doctors are treating a patient who returned from a trip on the Hondius to South America at the end of April at the University Hospital Zurich, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.
The patient tested positive for the Andes variant of the respiratory virus — the only strain capable of rare human-to-human transmission — and is in isolation, while his wife, who accompanied him on the trip but hasn’t shown any hantavirus symptoms, is self-isolating as a precaution.
The Swiss government said it considers “the occurrence of further cases in Switzerland unlikely. The risk to the public in Switzerland is low.”
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa — where one evacuated patient is in intensive care — also identified the Andes variant, underscoring concerns among health officials investigating the cluster of infections and deaths linked to the Dutch-flagged vessel.
South Africa’s health minister said it has recorded 62 people linked to the outbreak, either arrivals in the country or local contacts. Of these, 42 have been traced so far, with none diagnosed with the virus. Contact tracing is continuing, and those identified will be monitored until the incubation period — which ranges from one to six weeks — has passed.
The WHO has identified eight medical cases linked to the cruise — five suspected and three laboratory-confirmed — including three deaths.
Passengers, crew and expedition staff from 23 different countries are isolating on the Hondius.
–With assistance from Janice Kew, Jason Gale, Marthe Fourcade and Paul Richardson.
(Updates with evacuation from first paragraph.)
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