Dozens of passengers left hantavirus-stricken cruise ship after 1st fatality

The people who left the ship to return to their home countries were of at least 12 different nationalities, Oceanwide Expeditions said. It said there were also two people whose nationalities were unknown.

The first confirmed case of hantavirus in a passenger on the ship was only on May 2, the World Health Organization has previously said. That was in a British man evacuated from the ship to South Africa from Ascension Island three days after the St. Helena stop.

Three passengers have died in the outbreak, and several others are sick. Three people, including the ship’s doctor, were evacuated Wednesday while the ship was near the West African island country of Cape Verde and taken to Europe for treatment.

The body of the third fatality, a German woman, is still on board the ship after she died on May 2.

The vessel is now sailing to Spain’s Canary Islands, a voyage that is expected take three or four days, with more than 140 passengers and crew members still on board.

Authorities in South Africa and Europe are trying to trace contacts of any passengers who previously got off the ship. It emerged Wednesday that a man tested positive for hantavirus in Switzerland after he also disembarked at St. Helena and flew home, though his precise movements aren’t clear.

Dutch authorities did not confirm where other passengers who disembarked are now.

Hantavirus usually spreads by the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and may be transmitted from person to person, though that is rare, according to the World Health Organization, whose top epidemic expert said the risk to the public is low.

Tests have confirmed that at least five people who were on the ship were infected with a hantavirus found in South America, called the Andes virus. It can cause a severe and often fatal lung disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

Argentina’s health ministry said hantavirus led to 28 deaths nationwide last year, with nearly a third of cases leading to deaths, up from an average mortality rate of 15 in the five years before that.

The Andes strain is the only hantavirus known to spread from human to human.

The ship departed from Argentina and investigations into the source of the outbreak are focusing on that country. The Dutch couple, the first passengers to fall sick, traveled there and elsewhere in South America before boarding the ship, according to WHO.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

Molly Quell And Gerald Imray, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

Dozens of passengers left hantavirus-stricken cruise ship after 1st fatality

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