AP
Praia(Cape Verde)
Three patients with suspected hantavirus infections were being evacuated from a cruise ship to the Netherlands on Wednesday, the UN health agency said, as the vessel at the centre of a deadly outbreak remained off Cape Verde with nearly 150 people on board waiting to head to Spain’s Canary Islands.
Associated Press footage showed health workers in protective gear heading to the ship for the evacuation that included the ship’s British doctor, who Spain’s health ministry said had been in “serious condition” but has improved. An air ambulance later departed.
Three people have died, and one body remained on the ship, the World Health Organisation said. Eight cases have been recorded in all, three of them confirmed by laboratory testing. Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and can spread person-to-person, though the WHO calls that rare.
Contact tracing had begun on two continents, Europe and Africa, in search of infections around people who earlier left the ship, which departed over a month ago from South America for stops in Antarctica and several remote Atlantic islands.
Two Argentine officials investigating the origins of the outbreak said the government’s leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus while bird-watching in the city of Ushuaia before boarding.
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, with the investigation ongoing. Authorities previously said Ushuaia and surrounding Tierra del Fuego province had never recorded a hantavirus case.
The Dutch foreign ministry said the three people evacuated were a 41-year-old Dutch national, a 56-year-old British national and a 65-year-old German national who would be “immediately transferred to specialised hospitals in Europe.” A Dutch hospital confirmed it would take one. German authorities were preparing for a second.
Two remain in “serious condition,” Dutch ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said, and the third had no symptoms but was “closely associated” with a German passenger who died on the MV Hondius ship on May 2.
Health officials said passengers and crew members still on the ship are without symptoms; the WHO said passengers represent 23 nationalities. Their journey to the Canary Islands will take three or four days, Spain’s health ministry said, adding that the arrival “won’t represent any risk for the public.”
Meanwhile, authorities said testing in Switzerland, South Africa and Senegal had shown positive for the Andes strain of the virus. The WHO says the species of hantavirus is found in South America, primarily in Argentina and Chile, and can spread between people, though that’s rare and only through close contact.
The World Health Organization’s top epidemic expert told The Associated Press the risk to the public is low, and the Andes variant is known even if WHO has never seen a hantavirus outbreak on a ship.
“This is not the next Covid, but it is a serious infectious disease,” Maria Van Kerkhove said. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”
For those on the ship, access to clinical care is important, she said, because infected people can develop severe acute respiratory distress and need oxygen or mechanical ventilation. The hantavirus incubation period can be one to six weeks, or more, she said.
The ship left Argentina on April 1. The WHO has said the itinerary included stops across the South Atlantic, including mainland Antarctica and the remote islands of South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension.
The ship is now in the Atlantic off West Africa’s island nation of Cape Verde. The WHO said passengers were isolating in their cabins.
Two Dutch infectious diseases experts were joining the ship, Van Kerkhove said.
Spain’s health ministry said it would receive the ship in the Canary Islands after a request from the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The Canary Islands regional president , Fernando Clavijo, said he worried about the risk to the population and demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Authorities in Switzerland said a former passenger was being treated at a Zurich hospital after testing positive for the Andes strain. South African authorities earlier said two passengers who were transferred there tested positive for the strain. One, a British man, was in intensive care and the other collapsed and died in South Africa.
Swiss health office spokesperson Simon Ming said the patient there had left the ship during its St Helena stop. It was not clear when or how he travelled to Switzerland.
The patient’s wife hasn’t shown symptoms but is self-isolating as a precaution, a statement by the office said.
“There is currently no risk to the Swiss public,” the office said, while looking into whether the patient had come into contact with others.
At St. Helena, the body of the Dutch man suspected to be the first hantavirus case on board was taken off the ship. His wife flew to South Africa, where she collapsed at the Johannesburg airport and died.
Later, a British man was evacuated at Ascension Island and taken to South Africa.
The ship’s operator has not said if other people left at those or other locations.
The South African health ministry says officials have traced 42 out of 62 people, including health workers, they believe had contact with the two infected passengers who travelled there. The 42 tested negative for hantavirus.
But 20 people still need to be traced, including five people who may have been on flights to South Africa with some of the passengers as well as flight crew members.
Some may have now travelled overseas, the ministry said.
