Evacuated Hantavirus Patients Reach Netherlands as Ship Sails On
(Bloomberg) — A cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak has begun sailing toward Spain’s Canary Islands after evacuating three people, with two already arriving in the Netherlands for treatment, its operator said.
The vessel, the Dutch-flagged Hondius, left Cape Verde on Wednesday evening and is expected to reach the Canary Islands in about three to four days, its operator, Oceanwide Expeditions BV, said. An aircraft carrying a third evacuee has been delayed, the company said, while three additional medical professionals have boarded the ship to support care during the crossing.
The ship will likely arrive at the Granadilla de Abona port in Tenerife on Saturday, Spanish Health Minister Mónica García told reporters, though regional authorities have raised questions about the plan and timing. The outbreak has triggered a cross-border response as authorities coordinate evacuations, screening and repatriation across several countries.
“All passengers and crew who remain on the ship as of today are asymptomatic,” García said. “Unless a medical condition prevents it, all foreign passengers will be repatriated,” following a protocol led by the European Commission with support from the World Health Organization. The 13 Spanish passengers and a crew member will be taken to a military hospital in Madrid for quarantine.
The World Health Organization 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 countries remain on the Hondius.
Hantavirus is a rare infection typically spread through contact with infected rodent droppings or inhaling contaminated dust. Symptoms can take weeks to appear, and in severe cases the illness can progress rapidly to respiratory failure, with fatality rates reaching as high as 50% in the Americas.
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.
A patient who returned from the first leg of the voyage in late April is being treated at University Hospital Zurich after testing positive for the Andes variant of the virus, which has been linked to rare human-to-human transmission. The patient is in isolation, while his asymptomatic wife, who accompanied him on the trip, is self-isolating as a precaution.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa, where one evacuated patient is in intensive care, also identified the Andes variant. South Africa has recorded 62 people linked to the outbreak, either arrivals in the country or local contacts, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said. Of these, 42 have been traced so far, with none diagnosed with the virus.
The Swiss government said Wednesday that the contagion risk to the public is low and it considers “the occurrence of further cases in Switzerland unlikely.”
Investigators are still working to determine how the virus spread, including whether infections occurred before boarding or through limited transmission among close contacts on board.
–With assistance from Bastian Benrath-Wright, Marthe Fourcade, Madison Muller and Paul Richardson.
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