Evacuations were taking place on Wednesday (May 6) from a cruise ship stricken with a deadly outbreak of hantavirus, the World Health Organization said, as experts confirmed a rare strain that can be transmitted between humans.
Three people – two crew members and one other person – thought to be infected with the virus were being taken off the MV Hondius, anchored off Cape Verde, the WHO said.
“The three of them are stable, and one of the three is asymptomatic,” Ann Lindstrand, the WHO representative in Cape Verde, told AFP.
The ship 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 – a rare disease usually spread from infected rodents, typically through urine, droppings and saliva.
The Dutch-flagged cruise ship set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina on Apr 1 and has been anchored off Cape Verde since Sunday while emergency teams try to deal with a situation.
The ship’s Dutch operator Oceanwide Expeditions had said on Tuesday that two seriously ill crew members – one British, one Dutch – and a passenger would be taken off the ship and flown to the Netherlands, allowing the vessel to sail on to Spain’s Canary Islands.
Health experts raised concerns that a wider outbreak could be on the cards after a Dutch woman with symptoms left the ship and was flown on a passenger plane to Johannesburg, where she later died on Apr 26.
Efforts are underway to trace people on that flight, which South African-based carrier Airlink said was carrying 82 passengers and six crew.
On Wednesday, the Swiss health ministry also confirmed that a cruise ship passenger had been hospitalised with hantavirus in Zurich.
South Africa’s health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, told a parliament committee on Wednesday that tests had found the Andes strain, the only one that can be passed between humans.
“But as we said, we want to repeat again, such transmission is very rare and only happens due to very close contact between people,” the minister said.