Emergency crews yesterday evacuated three people from a cruise ship stricken with a deadly outbreak of hantavirus, the WHO said, as experts confirmed a rare strain that can be transmitted between humans.
Two crew members and one other person thought to be infected were being taken off the MV Hondius, anchored off Cape Verde, the global health body said, adding that they would be flown to the Netherlands for treatment.
Police officers wearing white hazmat suits waited at the port in the West African country’s capital, Praia, as a small red ambulance boat sailed back and forth to the cruise ship.
Photo: AFP
The vessel has been at the center of an international health scare since Saturday, when the WHO was informed that three passengers had died and the suspected cause was hantavirus. The rare disease is usually spread by infected rodents, typically through exposure to their urine, droppings and saliva.
Passengers began falling ill a month ago. A Dutch woman died in South Africa on April 26 after leaving the cruise following the death of her husband. Two other people are still being treated — one in Johannesburg and one in Zurich, Switzerland.
Spain’s health minister has said the ship will sail to the Canary Islands once the evacuations have been completed, but Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo said he was opposed to the move and requested an urgent meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. The decision ultimately belongs to the central government, which supersedes regional authorities.
The Netherlands said two infectious disease experts were flying to Cape Verde to board the vessel for the journey.
The ship, operated by Dutch firm Oceanwide Expeditions, set sail from Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and has been anchored off Cape Verde since Sunday while emergency teams try to deal with a situation.
Health experts raised concern that a wider outbreak could be on the cards after it emerged that the Dutch woman who died had flown on a commercial plane from the island of Saint Helena to Johannesburg while she was showing symptoms.
Officials are trying to trace people on that flight, which South African-based carrier Airlink said was carrying 82 passengers and six crew.
South African Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi yesterday told a parliamentary committee that tests had found the Andes strain, the only hantavirus strain known to be passed between humans.
“Such transmission is very rare and only happens due to very close contact between people,” the minister said, without specifying which patient the sample had come from.
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health also confirmed that a passenger from the ship was being treated in hospital in Zurich and had tested positive for the Andes strain.
It said that further cases were “unlikely,” because transmission only occurs through very close contact.
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