WHO on the Hantavirus Outbreak
The WHO suspects that the chain of infection may have originated from a Dutch couple who could have contracted the South American Andes virus before boarding in Argentina. Like all hantaviruses, it is usually transmitted by rodents.
The Andes virus is the only hantavirus that can be transmitted from person to person. In the past decades, there have been only a few documented outbreaks in South America, all of which subsided rapidly. In the current case, experts also see no risk of a wider spread of the pathogen.
The peculiarity this time is merely that the virus appeared by chance on a cruise ship with many passengers aboard. Because the symptoms resemble those of various respiratory illnesses, testing for hantavirus was delayed. Only then did stricter isolation and surveillance measures come into effect. As a result, there were some initial infections. (dpa)
Ministry: Hantavirus Contact Person Is Doing Well
One contact person from Baden-Württemberg connected with the Hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship “Hondius” remains in good health according to official statements. There are so far no indications of infection, said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Stuttgart.
The person was moved late Sunday evening as part of a special isolation transport with three other German passengers from Eindhoven in the Netherlands to Germany. The arrival of the transport was confirmed by a spokesperson from the University Hospital Frankfurt in the morning. There, the four people are to be examined for illness symptoms.
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Stuttgart had announced on Sunday that the Baden-Württemberg contact person should subsequently be placed under home quarantine. On Monday, the further transport to Baden-Württemberg was planned. Regarding the identity of the affected person, the ministry gave no details to protect privacy.
Thus, it is currently unclear where the person comes from, what gender they are, or how old they are. The health department will supervise the measure closely, the ministry said. “There is currently no reason for the population in Baden-Württemberg to take special measures,” the ministry emphasized.
The quarantine was ordered by the responsible health department in the Stuttgart administrative district and is being closely monitored. The health status will be regularly monitored during the period — including daily symptom monitoring. If signs of illness appear, further medical steps will be taken immediately. (dpa)
Captain Speaks Out in a Video Message
The captain of the hantavirus-affected cruise ship “Hondius,” Jan Dobrogowski, has spoken out for the first time in a video message about the crisis. He thanked his crew and the passengers for “patience, discipline and kindness.” “These past weeks have been extremely exhausting,” said the captain, who is from Poland. People have shown “care, solidarity and strength” under these difficult circumstances.
He said he had seen that “people can trust one another, even when help is not immediately available.” He wished everyone aboard a safe journey home. (dpa)
Australia Orders Prolonged Quarantine
Australia will isolate six passengers of the dead hantavirus outbreak cruise ship “Hondius” for at least three weeks after their arrival in a dedicated quarantine facility. According to the government’s Monday statements, the travellers will be admitted to the Bullsbrook Centre near Perth in Western Australia, which had been set up during the coronavirus pandemic.
Of the six passengers who had shown no symptoms so far, four hold Australian citizenship, one has permanent residency, and one holds New Zealand citizenship. They are expected to fly from Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Spain, to Australia in the afternoon. According to the Australian Health Minister Mark Butler, they should land at an Air Force base adjacent to the quarantine centre.
According to Butler, a decision still has to be made about how to handle the passengers after the initial three-week quarantine. Other countries would release the passengers after a few days so they could isolate at home, Butler said at a press conference. Australia, however, is reacting more strongly, as the long flight from Tenerife in a relatively small aircraft poses a greater risk of transmission. (afp)
Two Passengers After Evacuation Test Positive
Two passengers of the cruise ship “Hondius” – a French woman and a US citizen – tested positive for hantavirus after leaving the ship. The remaining 22 passengers still on board were to be flown to the Netherlands on Monday, according to the Spanish government. Four German passengers evacuated on Sunday were meanwhile flown from Frankfurt am Main to Berlin, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Saxony.
The condition of the French woman had “unfortunately worsened” during the night, and tests confirmed hantavirus infection, French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist told the radio station France Inter. The ill woman had been isolated on arrival in Paris on Saturday, as had four other passengers.
A US passenger was “mildly positive” for hantavirus on the return flight to the United States, the US Department of Health and Human Services said on Sunday evening local time. Another passenger had mild symptoms.
Of the 54 people still on board the Hondius, 22 were to begin their journey home on Monday, 32 crew members were to stay aboard until reaching the port of Rotterdam. Unlike earlier plans, the last 22 passengers were to be flown together to the Netherlands. An initially planned flight to Australia was canceled because the aircraft could not reach the Canary Island of Tenerife in time.
In light of the latest confirmed hantavirus infections, the Spanish Health Ministry defended its actions. It had “from the outset taken all measures” to “interrupt possible chains of transmission”; “all measures for the prevention and containment of transmission” had been implemented.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen thanked the Spanish authorities for the “rapid and efficient” evacuation of the passengers on Tenerife. Brussels assessments indicate the risk of hantavirus spreading in Europe remains low, a Commission spokeswoman said on Monday in Brussels.
On Sunday, 94 passengers and crew from a total of 19 countries had already left the cruise ship and begun their homeward journey from Tenerife on special flights. Before leaving the ship, García said, all passengers and crew had been examined again and found without symptoms.
The German Federal Ministry of Health in Berlin stated that all four German passengers were “completely asymptomatic.” The four Germans had been flown on Sunday, along with other affected people, from Tenerife to Eindhoven on a Dutch aircraft. According to the ministry, they were subsequently brought to the Frankfurt University Hospital, where they arrived in the early hours of Monday.
In their home regions, the respective public health offices would take charge. In Berlin and Bavaria, the passengers were to be taken to clinics initially, while in Baden-Württemberg home quarantine apparently was planned. How the contact person in Saxony would be handled remained unclear.
In the port of Granadilla on Tenerife, the Hondius was being refueled. In the evening, the Dutch-flagged cruise ship was to resume the multi-day voyage to Rotterdam. (afp)
The Affected Cruise Ship
The Hondius had set sail on April 1 from Ushuaia in southern Argentina on an Atlantic cruise. The first passenger from the Netherlands died on April 11 on board from hantavirus. His wife left the vessel on April 24 on the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic to accompany her husband’s body home. Two days later she died after a flight to Johannesburg in hospital. On May 2, a German passenger died aboard the Hondius. Her body remains on board.
Another German who had contact with her and who had already been taken off the ship a few days earlier has been at the University Hospital Düsseldorf since last week. So far, no infection has been detected in her, the hospital announced on Monday. There is no vaccine and no treatment for the hantavirus which can cause severe respiratory illness. (afp)
US Health Authority Unusually Silent
No investigative team, no major press conferences with public information, no swift health warnings to physicians: during the hantavirus outbreak on the Hondius, the U.S. health authorities remained remarkably quiet for a long time, even though about two dozen American citizens were aboard the cruise ship.
Health authorities and professionals from other countries turned to the public and sent experts to the Hondius, while the American CDC largely stayed in the background. “The CDC is not even playing a role,” says Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. “I have never seen anything like this.”
Only late last week did the U.S. health agency ramp up its operations: it dispatched a team to the Canary Islands to receive the U.S. passengers there. A second team was reportedly sent to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where the passengers would be monitored in a quarantine centre.
At the same time, authorities for the first time addressed the medical community with warnings about possible imported hantavirus cases. About half a dozen American passengers had already left the Hondius during a layover about three weeks earlier, when the first deaths on board had occurred, but before hantavirus was confirmed as the cause. Some of them have since returned to the United States, the CDC said.
Some observers view the reticence as a sign of a weakening of the U.S. health authorities — internationally and as health protection at home. The hantavirus situation is a bellwether, says Jeanne Marrazzo, executive director of the medical professional organization IDSA, the American Society for Infectious Diseases. It provides insight into how well the country is prepared for a disease threat, she explains. “And at the moment I must, unfortunately, say that we are not prepared.” (ap)
