WHO warns MORE cases of rat virus likely as case is confirmed: RECAP

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The World Health Organisation today warned more hantavirus cases could emerge following the deaths of three people onboard the MV Hondius.

However, it offered a glint of light at the end of the tunnel – saying the outbreak could be limited if precautions are taken.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists in Geneva that five confirmed and three suspected cases had been reported overall, including the three deaths.

He added:

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 said, referring to the rare strain detected aboard the Hondius, which can be transmitted between humans.

The Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands later announced another patient had tested positive.

But the WHO’s emergency alert and response director Abdi Rahman Mahamud insisted:

We believe this will be a limited outbreak if the public health measures are implemented and solidarity shown across all countries.

People thought to have contracted the virus are being treated or isolating in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and South Africa.

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.

Passengers on the MV Hondius are still stuck at sea – amid reports the vessel is still days away from docking in Tenerife.

The boat left the shores of Cape Verde at 6.15pm UK time on Wednesday, operator Oceanwide Expeditions said, and is estimated to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife in the early hours of Sunday.

However, this is subject to change.

Despite reports the hantavirus outbreak may have been caused by a Dutch couple going ‘birdwatching on a rubbish dump’, Argentine health authorities maintain they have still not established the cause of the MV Hondius infection.

A spokesman said:

With the information provided so far by the countries involved and the national agencies participating, it is not possible to confirm the origin of the infection.

The Dutch couple travelled through Chile, Uruguay and Argentina before boarding the MV Hondius in the southern Argentine port of Ushuaia.

An elderly man had just started running a fever when he walked into a birthday party in the Argentine village of Epuyen in 2018.

That began the last ‘super-spreader’ event of the Andes strain of hantavirus – before this recent deadly outbreak on the MV Hondius.

With the race on to track down anyone who had contact with infected passengers, an investigation into the 2018 outbreak has offered clues to how the illness spreads.

Argentine scientists analysed samples from most of the 33 infected people, which included 11 deaths, during the Epuyen outbreak, and reconstructed how people interacted at the fateful party.

They found isolation measures helped stave off a wider outbreak – and that most human-to-human transmissions occurred on the first day the infected person had a fever.

You can read our report at the time here:

The United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was closely monitoring the situation, adding that the risk to the American public was extremely low at the time.

The Georgia Department of Public Health said it ​was monitoring two asymptomatic residents ​who had returned ⁠home after disembarking from the cruise ship.

​The Arizona ⁠Department of Health Services said it was monitoring one resident, who was also on the ship, and ⁠was not ​symptomatic.

According to the New York Times, California was monitoring a number of residents who had been on the ship.

And in Texas, officials said that two residents who were passengers on the ship returned to the U.S. before the outbreak was identified.

One French citizen has been in contact with a person who had fallen ill but was not showing symptoms, officials said.

In 2018, a 68-year-old Argentinian man became infected with the Andes strain, likely while coming into contact with rodent urine, droppings or saliva near his home.

This is normally how humans catch hantavirus – Andes being the only strain known to spread between humans.

On November 3, 2018, the man attended a birthday party for 90 minutes along with around 100 other people in a village in Argentina’s Chubut Province, near the Chilean border.

Five people who had contact with him developed symptoms in the following weeks, according to the 2020 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Three symptomatic people – dubbed ‘super-spreaders’ – accounted for two-thirds of infections.

One man infected six other people and died 16 days after displaying symptoms.

His wife, the third super-spreader, was feeling ill when she attended his wake, where 10 more people were infected.

Scientists analysed samples from the Epuyen outbreak, and reconstructed how people interacted at the fateful party.

They found that isolation measures helped stave off a wider outbreak – and that most human-to-human transmissions occurred on the first day the infected person had a fever.

Exactly when hantavirus symptoms first emerged was ‘critical’, the study emphasised.

In more than half of the cases, transmission ‘could be accurately established as the day of onset of fever in the primary case’, it explained.

Olivier Blond, analyst and biologist at Argentine research agency Conicet, highlighted the successful containment of the Epuyen outbreak.

‘This temporary “deprivation” of freedom helped preserve the health and well-being of the entire region by preventing the virus from spreading,’ Blond told AFP.

Since hantavirus is ‘highly lethal’, he said, ‘deaths start appearing quickly, isolation measures are put in place quickly, and the chain of transmission is rapidly stopped’.

With Covid, ‘only later do deaths start to accumulate’, he said, while with hantavirus, ‘everything happens much faster.

‘That is why there is not as much chance of a hantavirus pandemic.’

People exposed to the deadly rat virus could potentially become super-spreaders, experts have warned.

At present, there are more than 20 Britons still on board the stricken MV Hondius who are expected to return home in the coming days – and face being quarantined for up to eight weeks.

Read the full report by health reporter Zoe Hardy here:

A total of 30 passengers left the hantavirus-stricken Hondius during its call at the remote British island of Saint Helena, it has emerged.

Previously, a figure of ’23’ had been touted – but the cruise ship’s Dutch operator, Oceanwide Expeditions has now revealed the exact number.

The company added that all people who left the ship had been contacted.

It said that on April 1, a total of 114 guests boarded the vessel before it left Ushuaia in Argentina for the cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde.

The operator said:

We are working to establish details of all passengers and crew who embarked and disembarked on various stops of MV Hondius since March 20.

The World Health Organisation has insisted being coughed on – as opposed to just sharing the same air in a room – is necessary (along with other close and prolonged contact) to become infected with the Andean variant of the hantavirus.

But is that definitely the case?

It comes after the organisation appeared to present a similar narrative about Covid for three months – insisting is ‘not airborne’.

British science writer Matt Ridley has suggested in the Spectator that in the case of hantavirus, the WHO is probably right.

He says:

Even if most of the five, possibly eight, cases on board the cruise ship caught it from each other, it will have been close contact that did the spreading.

Here’s why: zoonotic agents are often very good at killing people –Ebola, Marburg, Nipah, Hendra, Sars and Hanta have high fatality rates – but are not so good at infecting people.

It takes time for a virus to evolve a good match of its proteins to the receptors on the cells of a new host.