GENEVA: Countries prepared Friday to repatriate passengers stranded aboard the MV Hondius after a deadly hantavirus outbreak killed three people and sickened several others during the trans-Atlantic cruise.
The Dutch-flagged vessel, carrying around 150 people, is expected to arrive off Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday. Special flights will then take passengers to their home countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the outbreak posed a minimal risk to the general public despite confirmation of the Andes virus strain, the only hantavirus known to spread from person to person.
Three passengers — a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman — have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents.
“This is a dangerous virus, but only to the person who's really infected, and the risk to the general population remains absolutely low,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters.
“The virus is not that contagious that it easily jumps from person to person,” he added.
The WHO said Friday there were five confirmed and three suspected cases of the virus, with an update due later. There are no suspected cases remaining on the ship.
A KLM flight attendant who came into contact with an infected passenger and later showed mild symptoms tested negative for hantavirus, the WHO said.
The infected passenger — the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak — had briefly boarded a Johannesburg-to-Netherlands flight on April 25 before being removed prior to takeoff. She died the following day in a Johannesburg hospital.
Spanish authorities said a woman seated two rows behind the infected passenger on that flight was also being tested for hantavirus after developing symptoms in eastern Spain. She is in isolation in hospital.
The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde.
Three suspected cases, including two crew members who later tested positive, were evacuated from Cape Verde to the Netherlands. German authorities said Friday the third person tested negative but would remain under observation.
Two Dutch healthcare workers — an expert from the European Centres for Disease Control and a WHO representative — are now aboard the ship conducting a risk assessment.
Spanish authorities said the ship will anchor off Tenerife and will not be allowed to dock. Passengers will be transferred to shore on a smaller vessel before being taken by bus to the airport.
The evacuation must take place between Sunday and Monday due to likely adverse weather conditions afterward, the Canarian regional government said.
Dockworkers in Tenerife protested Friday against the ship’s arrival.
British health authorities also said Friday there was a suspected case on Tristan da Cunha, one of the world’s most isolated settlements with around 220 people.
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