He hantavirus outbreak detected on the MV Hondius cruise ship added key information that reconfigures research: 29 passengers abandoned the ship on April 24 on the island of Saint Helenabefore the presence of the virus was officially confirmed. The information was distributed by the shipping company Oceanwide Expeditions in a statement in which admitted for the first time the magnitude of that landing.
Until now, the company had only reported that on that scale they had the body of the Dutch passenger was lowered who died on April 11 and his wife, who later also died. However, the new report reveals that That day 30 people left the boat.
The company also specified the origin of the passengers who disembarked in the British overseas territory: These are people of at least 12 nationalities, including seven British, six Americans, three Dutch, two Canadianstwo Swiss, two Turks, as well as travelers from Germany, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Singapore and Saint Kitts and Nevis. Added to this group are two cases whose nationality was not reported.
The data, which in the last few hours had begun to circulate in partial versions, ignited global health alerts. Authorities from different countries began operations to locate these passengerswho have already returned to their places of origin, given the possibility (although considered rare) of transmission of the virus between people.
According to official sources and international agencies, The whereabouts of many of these travelers are still unclear.which adds complexity to epidemiological monitoring. In that context, Governments and health organizations advance in contact tracing to prevent possible chains of contagion.
One of those cases already had an impact: a passenger who had also landed in Santa Elena tested positive for hantavirus in Switzerland after returning to his country, although his subsequent movements are not precisely known. That episode reinforced the need to locate the rest of the travelers who shared routes with the confirmed cases.
The focus of the investigation, furthermore, remains on the Dutch couple considered the index case of the outbreak. The man died on board on April 11 and his wife got off the ship on the 24th of that month in Santa Elena.. Both had started the trip in Ushuaia on April 1, after an extensive tour of Argentina and neighboring countries.
After getting off the cruise, The woman was flown to South Africa. During that journey she developed symptoms and was hospitalized in Johannesburg, where she died days later. Even before had been removed from a commercial flight to Europe due to the deterioration of his health, a situation that triggered health alerts at airports and airlines.
In addition, that air transfer remained under investigation. The World Health Organization began tracking the passengers who shared the flight from the island of Saint Helena to Johannesburg, where More than 80 people were travelinggiven the possibility of identifying close contacts. Human-to-human transmission of hantaviruslimited to the Andes strain detected in this outbreak—is rare, but not impossible.
Meanwhile, the health operation around the cruise ship continues. Three patients were evacuated in the last hours through medicalized flights to Europe. One of them is already in a hospital in the Netherlands, another was transferred to Germany and the third also arrived in Dutch territory. after suffering delays in the transfer due to technical problems in the plane’s life support system.
According to the shipping company, The three – two with symptoms and one considered close contact – are under specialized medical care. On board the ship, meanwhile, no new symptomatic cases have been recorded, although the passengers remain under permanent medical monitoring.
The MV Hondius set sail from Cape Verde and is heading towards the Canary Islands, where it is expected your arrival in the next few days. There the protocol for disembarkation, quarantine and repatriation of passengers will be defined, in coordination with European health authorities.
In parallel, different countries began to monitor their citizens who were on the cruise. In the United States, for example, people in at least three states are followed for possible symptoms, although so far they have not shown signs of illness.
The outbreak has already left three dead – the Dutch couple and a German citizen – and at least five other suspected cases.some of them confirmed by laboratory. The identification of the Andes strain, capable of being transmitted between people under specific conditions, keeps specialists on alert, although they insist that this mechanism is rare and requires close contact.
With information from the AFP, AP and Reuters agencies.
