Countries worldwide scrambled on Thursday to trace people who had left the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak before it got marooned off the coast of Cape Verde, to prevent further spread of the disease. Three people - a Dutch couple and a German national - died in the outbreak on the MV Hondius.
Eight people, including a Swiss citizen, are suspected to have contracted the virus, according to the World Health Organization. The Dutch government has said around 40 passengers had disembarked the ship in Santa Helena, where the ship made a stop on its way to Cape Verde - before the outbreak was reported.
The whereabouts of many of these passengers is as yet unknown. One of those to disembark was the wife of the Dutchman who had died aboard the ship on April 11. She fell sick herself and died before she could reach the Netherlands. Dutch airline KLM on Wednesday said it had taken the woman off a plane in Johannesburg on April 25 due to her deteriorating medical condition.
According to broadcaster RTL, a KLM stewardess who had been in contact with her has now been admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam after showing possible symptoms of a hantavirus infection. The Dutch health ministry did not mention her job or who she may have been in contact with, but did confirm that a Dutch woman has been admitted to hospital and will be tested to determine whether she is infected with the hantavirus. A spokesperson for KLM said the company could not "discuss individual cases" due to privacy concerns.
The virus found in the victims has been confirmed as the Andean strain, which can spread among humans through very close contact. Experts have stressed that contagion is very rare and requires very close contact, but the outbreak has put health authorities on high alert. The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was closely monitoring the situation with U.S. travellers on board the ship, adding that the risk to the American public was extremely low at the time.
One French citizen has been in contact with a person who had fallen ill but was not currently showing symptoms, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said. Argentina's health ministry has said it will carry out rodent trapping and analysis in the southern city of Ushuaia, the origin point of the cruise ship.
The MV Hondius, with nearly 150 people on board, headed for Spain late on Wednesday and is expected to dock in Spain's Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, on Sunday, the EU's Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said. There is still no one showing any hantavirus symptoms on the ship, the ECDC, which is part of the medical team onboard the Hondius, said, adding that it was working with Spanish authorities to finalise a protocol for disembarkation.
Once in Tenerife, if they are still healthy, all non-Spanish citizens will be repatriated to their countries, while 14 Spanish passengers will be quarantined in a military hospital in Madrid. Three patients were evacuated from the ship on Wednesday. One of them has been admitted to a hospital in the Netherlands, while another one was transferred to Germany for medical care. The plane carrying the third patient landed in the Netherlands on Thursday morning, after facing a delay due to a problem with the patient's life support system.
The arrival this weekend of a cruise ship hit by an outbreak of hantavirus is reviving memories for residents of Spain's Canary Islands of the quarantines they experienced during the Covid pandemic. The MV Hondius, carrying 150 people, is expected to reach Tenerife on Saturday, where it will dock after Spain agreed to requests from the World Health Organization to receive it despite protests from the local government.
The archipelago was one of the first places in Europe to undergo quarantines during the early days of the pandemic. More than 700 holidaymakers were stranded in a hotel in Tenerife for 14 days in February 2020 after authorities cloistered the compound to prevent the spread of the virus, weeks before it propagated to the rest of Europe.
Other epidemics, such as an outbreak of Ebola in 2014, have also affected the islands, whose economy relies heavily on tourism. The archipelago has also complained that it has had to bear the brunt of a migration crisis from Western Africa. "We are a community that's already quite flexible when it comes to helping others and being accommodating to people, but I think this is excessive," said local resident Margarita Maria, 62.
"People are scared, people are worried. Spain is a huge country with plenty of ports where the cruise ship could go." The World Health Organization says the risk to the public remains low and the variant detected among passengers can spread between humans only through close, prolonged contact. Nevertheless, the news was stirring fears that hospitals and health centres on Tenerife would have to be locked down, said a nurse who asked not to be identified.
"It will be just like Covid ... People are worried about their children, elderly relatives and the vulnerable," the nurse said, adding that the islands' quarantine protocol for viruses, if one was declared, would affect schools and healthcare centres. All the passengers left on board the ship were not presenting symptoms of the disease and would be repatriated to their countries, while the 14 Spaniards on board would be flown to a hospital in Madrid to quarantine, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said on Wednesday.
Some residents complained that the Canaries' status as a safe destination meant it always had to shoulder responsibilities other tourist markets shirk. "Tourist destinations competing with the Canary Islands in the international market, such as Morocco, have not been taken into account, and the decision has been made to bring the cruise ship to the Canary Islands – there must be a reason for that," said Jorge Marichal, president of Tenerife's hotels association, Ashotel.
Madrid has failed to communicate what was expected of the archipelago, which was making it difficult to assuage the tourism industry, said the regional government's tourism minister, Lope Afonso. Some Canarians worried it could have an impact on Pope Leo's scheduled visit to the Canaries in June. "Can you imagine the Pope with hantavirus? That's a headline we don't want," local comedian Omayra Cazorla said on Instagram.