The World Health Organization has insisted the hantavirus outbreak on board the MV Hondius cruise ship will not become a pandemic but admit more people could be infected amid fears the disease has spread across the world.
Health chiefs today confirmed five cases of the virus so far but reiterate the threat to the wider public remains low.
‘So far, eight cases have been reported, including three deaths. Five of the eight cases have been confirmed as hantavirus and the other three are suspected,’ WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists in Geneva.
‘The species of hantavirus involved in this case is the Andes virus, which is found in Latin America… Given the incubation period of the Andes virus, which can be up to six weeks, it’s possible that more cases may be reported,’ he added.
Meanwhile the WHO confirmed the UK was the first to raise the alarm about the disease which has spread across the world following a ‘cluster of passengers with severe respiratory illness’.
Watch: How the cruise ship hantavirus became a global health scare
The MV Hondius cruise ship has been hit by a rare hantavirus outbreak which is believed to have killed three people so far.
The ship is sailing from Cape Verde towards the Spanish island of Tenerife where isolating passengers and crew will be finally be evacuated.
Watch our explainer on how the virus on board the ship has developed into a global health scare.
‘It wasn’t us’, Chile insists – as its revealed deceased Dutch couple travelled around the country before boarding doomed cruise ship
A married Dutch couple who died of hantavirus travelled through Chile before falling ill on the MV Hondius cruise ship, it has emerged.
The two victims traveled to Chile and Uruguay before returning to Argentina on March 27 this year to board the ship on April 1, according to Argentine officials.
But Chile has insisted the pair were not infected in the country when they travelled through it – as they travelled around ‘during a period that does not correspond to the incubation time, so exposure to the virus would not have occurred’, the health ministry said.
The Andes virus is found in South America, and is the only strain of hantavirus with documented human-to-human transmission.
Canary Islands blame ‘colonial attitudes’ for impending arrival of disease-stricken cruise ship on its shores
The Canary Islands have moaned about an alleged ‘colonial attitude’ in Spain which they say has forced them to accept the disease-struck MV Hondius on their shores.
Interestingly, they have compared this to the arrival of tens of thousands of irregular migrants to their land every year.
A columnist wrote in the daily Tenerife newspaper El Dia:
Just as what happened with the handling of migration, the temptation to transform the Canaries into a physical, operational and logistical barricade for future outbreaks of infections and pandemics must not succeed.
Race to trace ‘dozens of passengers’ who disembarked rat virus cruise ship in full swing
A race to trace dozens of passengers who disembarked the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship before its deadly outbreak was detected is in full swing.
Health authorities are scouring four continents for the missing passengers and trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.
You can read more about the manhunt here:
Covid FLASHBACKs haunt Canary Islands as rat virus ship nears ever closer
The Canary Islands are said to be having Covid ‘flashbacks’ as the diseased MV Hondius arrives closer and closer to its shores.
It comes after authorities on the islands initially tried to reject orders from Spain to allow the ship to dock, amid fears it could bring the deadly virus onto its territory.
Marco Gonzalez, a retiree living on the island of Tenerife recalled early conversations of the pandemic that upended daily life in 2020, saying it was nothing, and then look what happened’.
Alicia Rodriguez, owner of an ice cream parlour in El Medano, said:
People are thinking about that, what happened five or six years ago. We paid the consequences for two years.
Global health officials share the ‘good news’ – as two medically evacuated Britons show signs of improvement
Two Britons who were medically evacuated from the MV Hondius are improving, according to the World Health Organisation.
Martin Anstee, 56 (pictured) was flown to the Netherlands on Wednesday to receive specialist medical care.
Another Briton, 69, was taken to a private health facility in Johannesburg on April 27.
Dr Maria Van Kerhove, of the WHO, said it was ‘actually very good news’ that both patients are now ‘stable’ and ‘doing better’.
WHO warns of MORE hantavirus cases – as second cruise ship patient tests positive
The World Health Organisation has warned more cases of the deadly virus could emerge – though the outbreak will be ‘limited’, if precautions are taken.
It comes as another patient onboard the MV Hondius has tested positive for the virus, according to a hospital in the Netherlands.
A spokesman said:
It has been confirmed that the admitted patient has hantavirus. The patient has been informed and has given permission to share this information.
Danish cruise passenger in self-quarantine after leaving cruise ship early
A Danish national who travelled on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship Hondius has gone into self-quarantine, authorities said today.
The Danish Patient Safety Authority said the individual disembarked on April 24 and is showing ‘no symptoms of illness’.
The person, whose age and gender were not disclosed, had returned to Denmark at the end of April, had not been in close contact with the people on the MV Hondius who developed the disease.
In the health agency’s assessment, the risk of the person having contracted the virus was ‘low,’ but it said it was in regular contact with the person and monitoring the situation.
The WHO is working with countries who have citizens onboard diseased ship for their ‘onward passage home’ – admitting it must be ‘very carefully done’
The World Health Organisation is working with all of the countries who have passengers onboard the MV Hondius to ensure their ‘onward passage home’.
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, director of the department of epidemic and pandemic threat management at the WHO said:
We are working with all of the countries who have nationalities that are on board to discuss the plans for the safe journey of those patients home, once they disembark, once they’re medically evaluated, what those decisions will be.
It needs to be very carefully done, but we are working with the countries about that onward passage home.
Cruise passengers will be ‘completely isolated’ from public
Passengers on MV Hondius will be ‘completely isolated’ from members of the public when it arrives in the Canary Islands, officials have insisted.
Spain’s head of civil protection Virginia Barcones said travellers can expect to be taken on a 10-minute drive to planes to fly back to their countries once they are ready to be evacuated.
She said:
Mechanisms are being put together, but they will be completely isolated from the public. They will be taken to an isolated fenced off place, they will be in isolated vehicles, they will reach an area of the airport that will be completely isolated.
There is no possibility of contact.
Spain say risk of cruise ship to public health is ‘very low’
Spanish authorities say the risk to public health posed by the MV Hondius cruise ship following a hantavirus outbreak is ‘very low’.
Pedro Gullon, the general director of public health and equity in Spain, told a briefing the ship will be inspected as soon as it arrived in the Canary Islands.
He said:
Then we are in touch with doctors on board so we get a daily update on everything that’s happening on the boat. Once we know what’s going on, if there are no new cases, we can proceed to take people to their place of origin.
He added:
The risk for the public is a very low risk, it’s important to know this.
Map: The journey of MV Hondius
The MV Hondius has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when the UN’s health agency was informed that three passengers had died and the suspected cause was hantavirus.
Cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said earlier Thursday that 30 passengers of at least 12 different nationalities had left the cruise during a stopover on April 24 on the British island of St Helena.
The ship first set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1, destined for Cape Verde, and cost £10,000 per person.
Here’s a map of its sailing:
Key Updates
-
Spain say risk of cruise ship to public health is ‘very low’
-
Hunt for British passenger who disembarked in St Helena
-
Top story: Hantavirus cruise ship threw ‘a big barbecue as if nothing happened’
-
Anger in Tenerife as hantavirus cruise heads to the Canary Islands
-
What we know about hantavirus on the Hondius
-
Watch: How the cruise ship hantavirus became a global health scare
-
UK first to raise alarm about hantavirus outbreak
-
Hantavirus outbreak not expected to become an epidemic, WHO say
