Spanish authorities are making preparations to receive more than 140 passengers and crew members from a cruise ship affected by hantavirus, which is en route to the Canary Islands. Health officials in the Canary Islands plan to conduct careful evacuations upon the ship’s arrival in Tenerife on Sunday.
The head of Spain’s emergency services, Virginia Barcones, mentioned that passengers will be taken to a completely isolated and cordoned-off area. The United States and the United Kingdom have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ship.
Canadian consular officials are on their way to meet four Canadians who are still on board. Despite three deaths and five known cases of hantavirus among passengers who disembarked earlier, the cruise operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, stated that there are currently no symptomatic individuals on the Dutch-flagged ship, MV Hondius.
The World Health Organization has stated that the overall risk to the public from this outbreak is low. A flight attendant who briefly interacted with an infected cruise passenger tested negative for hantavirus, easing concerns about potential transmission.
Hantavirus is typically spread through contaminated rodent droppings and is not easily transmissible between people. However, the Andes virus detected in this cruise ship outbreak may have the potential for rare human-to-human transmission. Health authorities on four continents are actively tracking down and monitoring passengers who disembarked before the outbreak was identified.
In Canada, two individuals who left the ship are isolating at home in Ontario, while a third Canadian who may have been in contact with a symptomatic person is isolating in Quebec. British health authorities suspect a British national on the remote island of Tristan da Cunha may have been infected with hantavirus after being on the ship.
Spanish health officials are testing a woman in Alicante for a possible hantavirus infection, as she was on the same flight as the Dutch woman who passed away in Johannesburg after contracting the virus. Additional cases have been confirmed among British passengers from the ship.
Authorities in South Africa are tracing contacts of passengers who disembarked earlier. In the Canary Islands, plans are in place for the careful evacuation of passengers to repatriation flights. Spain has requested medically equipped aircraft to transport any symptomatic passengers, ensuring no contact with the general population.
