Timeline reported by AP
An outbreak of the rare hantavirus unfolded over weeks aboard the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius as it traveled across the Atlantic, The Associated Press reported in a day-by-day timeline. The report said at least three passengers died and that health authorities in multiple countries began tracing people who left the ship and isolating those who may have had contact.
The voyage began April 1 when the ship set off from Ushuaia in far southern Argentina, with planned stops that included Antarctica and several isolated South Atlantic Ocean islands, the timeline said. On April 6, the report said a 70-year-old Dutch man became sick on board with fever, headache and mild diarrhea after traveling around Argentina and Chile. It said the man’s symptoms later led to respiratory distress and death aboard ship on April 11, with the cruise company saying the cause of death could not be determined at the time.
On April 15, the timeline said six people joined the cruise when it stopped at the remote archipelago of Tristan da Cunha, and it said the Dutch man’s body remained on board. The report said that on April 24 the man’s body was taken off the vessel at St. Helena, part of the same British territory, and that his wife disembarked along with more than two dozen other passengers, with the stop marking the end of the cruise for some. On April 25, the report said the Dutch woman, who had symptoms of illness, flew commercially from St. Helena to South Africa—on an aircraft carrying 88 passengers and crew—and it said it was not clear how many other passengers who had gotten off the MV Hondius took that flight.
The timeline said the Dutch woman later died in South Africa on April 26 after collapsing at an airport while trying to board another plane home. It said that after the ship left St. Helena, a third passenger became sick on April 27, prompting the evacuation of a British man to Ascension Island, and later to South Africa where he was placed in intensive care. The report said the British man had a high fever, shortness of breath and signs of pneumonia, which can be caused by hantavirus.
As the ship continued its route, the timeline said another passenger—the German woman—fell ill on April 28 while the ship sailed toward Cape Verde off Africa’s west coast. It said the German woman died on May 2, nearly a month after the first passenger had become ill, and that she was the third fatality in the outbreak timeline. On that same day, the timeline said South African health authorities received a positive hantavirus result from tests performed on the British man in intensive care, and said it was the first time the virus was identified in the outbreak.
On May 3, the timeline said the World Health Organization stated it was responding to a suspected hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship, which by then had arrived in Cape Verde waters. The timeline said that on May 4 South African health officials received a posthumous positive result for hantavirus for the Dutch woman, after they had decided to test her body following the positive test on the British man. It said WHO then considered the situation an outbreak.
The report said May 5 brought a standoff between the cruise ship and Cape Verde authorities over whether the ship could evacuate additional sick people and let other passengers and crew members disembark. It said Cape Verde sent health workers to the ship to assist but said no one could disembark, while it also said two crew members were seriously ill, including the ship’s doctor, and another person was being monitored. On May 6, the timeline said those three people—including two who tested positive for hantavirus—were evacuated and flown to specialized hospitals in Europe, and that the ship later sailed to Spain’s Canary Islands after Spain said it would accept it.
The timeline also said authorities in Switzerland announced another positive hantavirus test on May 6 on a man who had left the cruise earlier in St. Helena, bringing confirmed cases to five. It said health authorities in South Africa and Switzerland described the pathogen as the Andes virus, the only hantavirus thought to spread human-to-human, and said it is found in South America primarily in Argentina and Chile. On May 7, the report said officials in Switzerland, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Singapore, South Africa and elsewhere were isolating people who previously left the ship and tracing people who might have come into contact with cruise passengers.
After the ship reached Tenerife on May 10, the report said it anchored offshore early in the morning and that a major disembarkation process unfolded with travelers escorted to shore by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks. It said people began flying home on military and government planes, and that leaving fewer than 60 passengers still aboard, Spanish, French, Canadian, Dutch, British, Irish, Turkish and American nationals boarded planes headed to their respective countries. On May 11, the timeline said a French woman and an American tested positive for hantavirus following their repatriation, and that countries continued to monitor and in many cases quarantine travelers repatriated from the cruise ship as the evacuation effort to fly people out of more than 20 countries was due to wrap up.