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Medical personnel will focus on evacuating two sick persons from a cruise ship hit by a fatal hantavirus outbreak, the World Health Organization said at a briefing on Tuesday.
The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius ship is currently held in the Atlantic near Cape Verde. WHO officials said that while there may be some human-to-human transmission happening between close contacts on board the ship, the virus does not spread as readily as influenza or COVID-19.
“When we do see couples that have spent a long time together and both of them are infected, either they had a common source infection and one incubated quicker than the other, or one infected the other,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the World Health Organization, told reporters in Geneva.
However as a precaution, passengers aboard the Hondius have been instructed to remain inside their cabins, the WHO said, adding that the incubation period can last several weeks, meaning some people may not yet be showing symptoms.
Some 20 nationalities are represented among the nearly 150 people on the ship. In an email to CBC News earlier Monday, Global Affairs Canada says Canadian consular officials have been in touch with local authorities and that there are no reports of Canadians being directly affected by the outbreak. It is believed four Canadians are on the ship.
A suspected hantavirus outbreak on a luxury cruise ship held off the coast of South Africa has left at least three people dead and several others sick. For The National, CBC chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault asks infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch to break down how the virus spreads and the risk to humans.
1 passenger not symptomatic
The hantavirus typically spreads to humans from infected rodents and only rarely passes between humans. Thousands of cases are reported globally each year and limited human-to-human transmission of the Andes virus, a species of hantavirus found in Argentina and Chile, “has been reported in community settings involving close and prolonged contact,” WHO has said.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, infectious diseases specialist at Toronto General Hospital, told CBC News that Canada sees about three to five cases per year, usually in the Prairies.
At least three people are dead and three more are sick as of May 4 in what the World Health Organization says is a suspected outbreak of hantavirus aboard a cruise ship. The WHO has confirmed at least one case aboard the MV Hondius and that passenger has been airlifted to a hospital in South Africa.
Epidemiological investigations were under way to determine the source of the outbreak, the WHO said. Medical teams in Cape Verde are evaluating the patients and collecting additional specimens for testing.
Van Kerkhove said this is the first hantavirus cluster known to have occurred among a ship’s passengers, but the working presumption at this point is that the first infection occurred off the vessel. The ship’s operator has not reported any rodent infestations, though disinfection measures are taking place.
The luxury cruise set off from the southern tip of Argentina in late March and has visited the Antarctic peninsula and South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha — some of the most remote islands on the planet.
The seven confirmed or suspected cases include three people who have died — a Dutch couple and a German national — and a British national who is now in intensive care in a South Africa hospital.
Van Kerkhove said in addition to the two people expected to receive medical evacuation to the Netherlands, a person who reported a mild fever is considered a presumptive, asymptomatic case.
Van Kerkhove stressed that it “would not be the case” that everyone on board was at the same level of risk.
There is no specific treatment to combat hantavirus though respiratory issues are commonly reported among patients, meaning supplemental oxygen or mechanical ventilation could be required.
Ship departed weeks ago
The ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, has said there is no definitive plan yet for the disembarkation of the remaining guests on board. It only confirmed that this would not be done in Cape Verde.
A spokesperson for Spain’s Health Ministry told Reuters they had not yet received a request to dock at the Canary Islands.
The Dutch couple who were the first to die had travelled in South America, including Argentina, before they boarded the cruise ship.
The man died on April 11. His body remained on board until April 24, when it “was disembarked on St. Helena, with his wife accompanying the repatriation,” Oceanwide Expeditions said.
His wife, who had gastrointestinal symptoms when she was disembarked, later deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg. She died upon arrival at the emergency department on April 26, the WHO said, adding that contact tracing was under way for passengers on that flight.
The Hondius left Ushuaia in southern Argentina in March, according to company documentation, on a voyage marketed as an Antarctic nature expedition, with berth prices ranging from 14,000 to 22,000 euros ($22,000 to $39,000 Cdn).
