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In brief
- Two seriously ill crew members will be evacuated to the Netherlands.
- Contact tracing efforts are underway in South Africa.
Two critically ill crew members from a cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak will be evacuated to the Netherlands from Cape Verde, enabling the ship to continue its journey to Spain’s Canary Islands, the cruise operator announced on Tuesday.
The MV Hondius has been at the heart of a global health alert since Saturday, following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) notification of a suspected hantavirus outbreak. This rare virus, typically transmitted through the urine, droppings, and saliva of infected rodents, is believed to have caused the deaths of three passengers on board.
With additional cases emerging, both passengers and crew have been placed in isolation after Cape Verdean authorities denied the ship permission to dock. Health officials have been urgently searching for a suitable port for the Hondius, which remains anchored near Praia, the capital of Cape Verde.
On Tuesday, Dutch operator Oceanwide Expeditions revealed plans to evacuate two ailing crew members to the Netherlands for essential medical treatment. Additionally, a third person, who had close contact with a German passenger who died on Saturday, will also be evacuated.
The WHO confirmed that arrangements for the medical evacuation are currently underway.
Once the evacuation has taken place, MV Hondius “can continue its route”, Ann Lindstrand, the WHO’s representative in Cape Verde, told AFP, adding that the ship looked set to sail either to the Canaries or to the Netherlands.
Oceanwide Expeditions meanwhile said its plan was for the ship to sail north “to the Canary Islands, either Gran Canaria or Tenerife, which will take three days of sailing”, adding that “discussions are ongoing with relevant authorities”.
‘Complicated’
The cruise, which set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina on 1 April destined for Cape Verde, counted 88 passengers and 59 crew members, with 23 nationalities onboard, the WHO said. There are four Australians on board.
One of the dead, a Dutch woman, had left the ship at the Atlantic island of Saint Helena and had flown to Johannesburg where she died on 26 April.
Health authorities have been racing to find a port for the ship to dock, with Spanish authorities insisting they wanted health data from the expedition vessel before opening up a Canary Islands port.
On Tuesday, Lindstrand said an ambulance would take three people from the port in Praia, to the nearby airport, from which they will be evacuated by plane.
While the situation was “changing by the hour”, Lindstrand said that once that “complicated expedition” had been carried out, “the boat will be able to leave sometime in the middle of the night”.
Human-to-human transmission?
So far, two hantavirus cases have been confirmed — including in one of the fatalities and a British passenger currently in intensive care in Johannesburg — with five further suspected cases, the WHO said.
Three of those seven have died; the one in Johannesburg was critically ill, and three still on board had reported milder symptoms, including one who is now asymptomatic, it said.
The WHO was trying to deduce how hantavirus had appeared on the ship, with the first person who died having developed symptoms on 6 April.
Human-to-human transmission has only been reported in previous outbreaks of one specific hantavirus called Andes virus, which circulates in South America.
WHO epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director Maria Van Kerkhove told reporters the virus species had yet to be confirmed, but highlighted that WHO had been told “there are no rats on board” the ship.
South African researchers were sequencing the data, said Van Kerkhove, who added that “our working assumption is that it is the Andes virus”.
“We do believe that there may be some human-to-human transmission that is happening among the really close contacts”.
Contact-tracing
The first two fatalities were a Dutch couple — a man who died on April 11 and his wife who died after she disembarked in Saint Helena to accompany his body.
The wife was suffering from “gastrointestinal symptoms” and “deteriorated” during a flight to Johannesburg on 25 April, the WHO said. She died the following day.
Efforts are under way to trace people on that flight, which South African-based carrier Airlink said was carrying 82 passengers and six crew.
The South African authorities had asked the airline to notify the passengers that they must contact the health department, a representative, Karin Murray, told AFP.
Van Kerkhove said the typical incubation period for hantavirus was between one and six weeks, leading the WHO to believe that the Dutch couple, who had been travelling in South America, “were infected off the ship”.
The Hondius, she highlighted, was an expedition vessel, with passengers going ashore on Atlantic islands to do birdwatching and other activities — meaning there could be “some source of infection on the islands”.
The WHO has said the risk to the global population from the outbreak is “low”.
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