British crew member to be airlifted from stricken cruise ship amid suspected hantavirus outbreak
A British crew member in need of “urgent medical care” is waiting to be medically evacuated after a suspected hantavirus outbreak on a luxury cruise ship, authorities have said.
The crew member will be evacuated from the MV Hondius alongside a Dutch colleague after they experienced acute respiratory symptoms, it is understood.
The Dutch-flagged ship, which is thought to be carrying around 20 British nationals, has been hit by seven confirmed or suspected hantavirus cases. Three people have died, while a British passenger was evacuated and is in intensive care in South Africa, officials said.
The cruise ship hit by the deadly outbreak is marooned off Cape Verde, an island nation in the Atlantic off West Africa, which has not allowed the vessel to put passengers ashore.
It comes after health authorities warned the suspected hantavirus outbreak could be spreading between close human contacts onboard the vessel.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said transmission of the virus between two humans is rare, but that it suspects it may have taken place aboard the MV Hondius.
There are three more suspected cases still on board, one of whom has a mild fever.
In an update on Tuesday, WHO officials said the risk of global spread is “low”, but that some human-to-human transmission is believed to have taken place.
“We do believe that there may be some human-to-human transmission that’s happening among the really close contacts, the husband and wife, people who have shared cabins,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the WHO, told reporters in Geneva.
“Some people on the ship were couples, they were sharing rooms so that’s quite intimate contact,” Dr Van Kerkhove said.
The first stricken passenger, the Dutch man, died on 11 April. His body remained on board until 24 April, when it “was disembarked on St Helena, with his wife accompanying the repatriation”, the ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said.
His wife, who had gastrointestinal symptoms when she was disembarked, later deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg. She died upon arrival at the emergency department on 26 April, the WHO said, adding that contact tracing was under way for passengers on that flight.
Dr Van Kerkhove added that the agency’s working assumption was that the hantavirus on the ship is the Andes virus, which spreads in South America, including Argentina, and that testing is underway. The Hondius left Ushuaia in southern Argentina in March.
The WHO also said it had been told there were no rats on board. People are usually infected by hantavirus through contact with infected rodents or their urine, their droppings or their saliva.
