Cruise ship hit by deadly virus heads to Spain

A luxury cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak, which has been blocked off the coast of Cape Verde since Sunday, is set to set sail for Spain today after three people were evacuated, two of whom are seriously ill.

The MV Hondius, with almost 150 people on board, is expected to dock in the Spanish port of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, within three days, Spain's health minister said, adding that those still on board are not showing any symptoms of the disease.

Once they arrive in Tenerife, if they are still healthy, all passengers who are not Spanish citizens will be returned to their countries, Monica Garcia said at a press conference in Madrid.

quarantine

Fourteen Spanish passengers will be quarantined at a military hospital in Madrid, Garcia said. The duration of the quarantine will depend on when they may have been in contact with the virus, she added, noting that the incubation period is 45 days.

Three people, a Dutch couple and a German citizen, have died in the epidemic so far.

A total of eight people - including a Swiss citizen who returned home and is being treated in Zurich - are suspected of being infected with the virus, with three cases having had the infection confirmed by laboratory testing, the World Health Organization said.

South Africa has confirmed that it has identified the Andean strain of the virus among the victims, which - in rare cases - can spread between people through very close contact.

"It is the only strain of hantavirus known to cause human-to-human transmission, but such transmission is very rare and... only occurs through very close contact," South Africa's Ministry of Health said.

Three evacuated

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on Platform X that three people had been evacuated from the ship en route to the Netherlands.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry announced that among them are one Dutch citizen, one German and one British citizen, and that they will be transported to specialized hospitals in Europe.

Two of the evacuees had acute symptoms, the ship's operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said. The third person was in close contact with a German passenger who died on the ship on May 2. The Dutch ministry said it was possible that the person had contracted the virus.

The ship set sail from the far south of Argentina in late March and traveled to some of the most remote places on Earth.

Cape Verde was supposed to be the ship's final destination, but the island nation off the west coast of Africa did not allow passengers to disembark due to the epidemic.

"Very, very different from Covid"

Since the beginning of the epidemic, the WHO has said that the risk to the general public from viruses usually transmitted by rodents is low, and today it stressed that this remains the case.

"When we talk about close contact for human-to-human transmission, we mean very close physical contact, whether it's sharing a room with beds or a cubicle, providing medical care, for example. That's very, very different from Covid and very different from influenza," Maria van Kerkhove, WHO's director of epidemic and pandemic management, told Reuters.

She said the WHO was working with countries to trace passengers who left the ship on St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, before it reached Cape Verde.

South Africa has identified 65 people who have been in contact with people with confirmed or suspected hantavirus infection, while other countries have identified 12 more, WHO representative for South Africa, Shenaz el-Halabi, told Reuters.

We spend our days almost normally.

Passenger Kassem Hato told Reuters that the ship's captain was regularly briefing passengers on the situation and that everyone had been advised to limit close contact with other passengers and regularly use hand sanitizer.

"People are taking the situation seriously, but without panic, trying to maintain physical distance and wear masks to stay safe," he said.

"Our days are almost normal, we're just waiting for the authorities to find a solution, but morale on board is high and we're keeping ourselves busy with reading, watching movies, hot drinks and things like that."