Medics are scrambling to evacuate two people from a luxury cruise ship stranded off the coast of Cape Verde after a suspected outbreak of a rare respiratory virus killed three people, left three others seriously ill, and forced nearly 150 people from across the world to isolate onboard.
The MV Hondius set off in March from southern Argentina carrying 149 people from 23 countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) is investigating a suspected outbreak of hantavirus, a disease primarily found in rodents. The deaths include a married couple from the Netherlands and a German national.
US travel blogger Jake Rosmarin, fighting back tears in a social media video, said the hardest part was the uncertainty. “We’re not just headlines: we are people. People with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home. There’s a lot of uncertainty, and that’s the hardest part.”
Cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said the first passenger, a Dutch national, died on April 11, cause unknown. He was disembarked on St Helena on April 24 with his wife. Days later, the wife also fell ill and died at a South African airport while trying to return to the Netherlands.
On April 27, a British passenger became seriously ill and was evacuated to South Africa, where he remains in intensive care in Johannesburg in critical but stable condition. A variant of hantavirus was identified in him. On May 2, a German national died, cause not yet established.
Two crew members, British and Dutch, have acute respiratory symptoms, one mild and one severe. Hantavirus has not been confirmed in them. The company stressed that the virus has not been proven linked to the three deaths.
The ship is currently anchored off Cape Verde, but local health authorities refused docking permission to protect public health. Evacuation by air ambulance is being considered, as well as sailing to Spain’s Canary Islands.
The Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) said the source of infection remains unclear. “You could imagine rats on board transmitted the virus, or people were infected during a stop in South America via mice,” a spokesperson said.
The WHO said the risk to the wider public is low and no travel restrictions are needed. To date, one case of hantavirus has been laboratory confirmed, with five additional suspected cases. South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases is conducting contact tracing.
Source: www.theguardian.com