PRAIA, Cape Verde (AP) — Two patients with hantavirus and one suspected of infection were evacuated Wednesday from a cruise ship at the center of a deadly outbreak, the U.N. health agency said. The ship then departed Cape Verde with nearly 150 people on board — isolated in their cabins — and headed to Spain’s Canary Islands.
Associated Press footage showed health workers in protective gear evacuating three patients. Two arrived at Amsterdam's airport Wednesday evening and were taken to separate hospitals.
Three people have died, and one body remained on the ship, the World Health Organization said. Of eight recorded cases, five were confirmed by laboratory testing.
Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and can spread person-to-person, though that is rare, according to the WHO, whose top epidemic expert said the risk to the public is low.
Health officials in Europe and Africa are trying to identify people who may have had contact with people who earlier left the ship, which departed April 1 from South America for stops in Antarctica and several remote Atlantic islands.
Two Argentine officials investigating the origins of the outbreak said the government's leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus while bird-watching in the city of Ushuaia before boarding.
They said the couple visited a landfill during the tour and may have been exposed to rodents. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, with the investigation ongoing.
Officials say those still on board show no symptoms
The Dutch foreign ministry said the three people evacuated Wednesday were a 41-year-old Dutch national, a 56-year-old British national and a 65-year-old German national. WHO said testing in Senegal confirmed that two of the evacuees were infected with hantavirus.
Two of the evacuees were in “serious condition,” Dutch ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said, and the third had no symptoms but was “closely associated” with a German passenger who died on the MV Hondius ship on Saturday.
Upon arriving in Amsterdam, one of the evacuated patients was taken to a specialized hospital in Dusseldorf, Germany; the other was taken to a hospital in Leiden, the Netherlands.
Health officials said passengers and crew members still on the ship were without symptoms. Their journey to the Canary Islands will take three or four days, Spain’s health ministry said. Their arrival “won´t represent any risk for the public,” the ministry said.
Still, the Canary Islands regional president, Fernando Clavijo, said he worried about the risk to the public and demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
WHO expert says this is ‘not the next COVID’
Authorities said passengers tested positive for the Andes virus, a species of hantavirus found in South America, primarily in Argentina and Chile. The virus can spread between people, though that’s rare and only through close contact, according to the WHO. The health agency has never seen a hantavirus outbreak on a ship.
“This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” the WHO's top epidemic expert, Maria Van Kerkhove, said. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”
Two Dutch infectious diseases experts were joining the ship, Van Kerkhove said. Access to clinical care is important, she said, because infected people can develop severe acute respiratory distress and need oxygen or mechanical ventilation. There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival.
The hantavirus incubation period can be one to six weeks, or more, she said.
The ship's itinerary included stops across the South Atlantic, including mainland Antarctica and the remote islands of South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension.
Officials rush to determine passenger's travel after leaving ship
Authorities in Switzerland said a former passenger who tested positive was being treated at a Zurich hospital. South African authorities earlier said two passengers who were transferred there tested positive. One, a British man, was in intensive care; the other collapsed and died in South Africa.
Swiss health office spokesperson Simon Ming said the patient there had left the ship during its St. Helena stop. It was not clear when or how he traveled to Switzerland and how many other countries he might have passed through.
The patient’s wife hasn’t shown symptoms but is self-isolating as a precaution, a statement by the office said.
South Africa looks for people who had possible contact
At St. Helena, the body of the Dutch man suspected to be the first hantavirus case on board was taken off the ship. His wife flew to South Africa, where she collapsed at the Johannesburg airport and died.
Later, a British man was evacuated at Ascension Island and taken to South Africa.
The ship's operator has not said if other people left at those or other locations.
The South African health ministry says officials have traced 42 out of 62 people, including health workers, they believe had contact with the two infected passengers who traveled there. The 42 tested negative for hantavirus.
British health officials said two passengers who flew home earlier in the ship's journey are self-isolating but do not have symptoms. The U.K. Health Security Agency said “a small number” of contacts of the two are also self-isolating but also are not showing symptoms.
DeBre reported from Buenos Aires and Furtula from Amsterdam. Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Mark Banchereau in Dakar, Senegal; Joseph Wilson in Barcelona; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Michelle Gumede and Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg, contributed to this report.
