A hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic has killed at least three passengers and infected several others, leaving authorities in multiple countries racing to trace passengers who disembarked before the virus was identified. The vessel, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, is carrying more than 140 passengers and crew and is expected to reach the Spanish island of Tenerife early Sunday.
Hantavirus is typically spread through the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. Scientists believe the Andes virus variant implicated in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. The World Health Organization says the risk to the wider public from the outbreak is low. Symptoms usually appear between one and eight weeks after exposure.
Argentine investigators suspect a Dutch couple may have first contracted the virus while on a bird-watching trip before they boarded the ship in Argentina on April 1. Argentina’s Health Ministry has zeroed in on the nation’s southernmost town, Ushuaia, and officials plan to travel there in the coming days, according to a written statement to The Associated Press. No organization has confirmed where or how the couple acquired the disease.
Complicating the international response, the cruise operator and Dutch officials said Thursday that more than two dozen people from at least 12 countries left the ship at the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic on April 24. Among them was a Dutch woman who disembarked with her husband’s body after he became the first passenger to die. It was not until May 2 — eight days later — that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger.
The delay left countries scrambling to track passengers who had already traveled onward. The Dutch woman whose husband died flew to Johannesburg, then briefly boarded a plane preparing to fly to Amsterdam. She was removed because she was too ill to travel, and later died. South African and Dutch authorities are now trying to trace anyone who had contact with her during her travels. A flight attendant who reported symptoms after contact with her has tested negative for hantavirus.
The passengers who disembarked at St. Helena included a resident of the remote island of Tristan da Cunha who has been hospitalized with symptoms of hantavirus, according to the British Foreign Office. Stephen Doughty, the U.K. minister of overseas territories, said in a message to the British overseas territory that his thoughts were with “the islander currently in hospital and their spouse who is isolating.”
Spanish authorities are preparing to receive the remaining passengers and crew at Tenerife. Barcones said Friday that passengers will be evacuated in small boats to buses only once their repatriation flights are ready to take them. Spain has requested medically equipped planes for passengers experiencing symptoms.
The United States agreed to send a plane to the Canary Islands to pick up its citizens, who will be brought to a dedicated biocontainment and quarantine unit in Nebraska for assessment, officials said Friday. The British government is also arranging a repatriation flight. Other countries have not yet made their plans public, and it is unclear how long passengers will have to wait for their flights.
In the United States, some state officials said they were monitoring a small number of residents who were on the ship and already returned home. None has reported symptoms.