(Bloomberg) — Repatriation flights began Sunday for passengers aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship hit by the deadly hantavirus outbreak.
“We currently have 23 countries that have nationalities on board, either through passengers or crew,” Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, told Fox News’ The Sunday Briefing. “The operation started this morning at 7:30 local time and we will continue until about 7:30, 8 o’clock tonight and then continue tomorrow.”
The cruise ship docked at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Spain, on Sunday, and Van Kerkhove said flights had already departed to repatriate passengers to Spain, France, Canada and the Netherlands. Further flights to Turkey, the UK, Ireland and the US are scheduled before the end of the day. Three people have died on the ship since the outbreak began.
People also ask
Artificial intelligence reinforced the insights from this story
•5 QUESTIONS
Hantavirus is a rare but dangerous pathogen that is typically transmitted through contact with infected rodents, their droppings or saliva. On cruise ships such as the MV Hondius, the outbreak is believed to originate from possible exposure to rodents during activities such as bird watching in areas where the virus is endemic, such as Argentina.
Early symptoms of hantavirus resemble the flu, including fever, fatigue, headache, and muscle aches. These symptoms usually appear one to eight weeks after exposure. In severe cases, it can progress to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which causes shortness of breath and fluid in the lungs.
Passengers from MV Hondius are repatriated on flights to their home countries. WHO recommends active surveillance for 42 days, which may include health checks, quarantine at home or in a health facility due to the incubation period of the virus.
Hantavirus can cause severe respiratory disease with a significant mortality rate of approximately 38% in those who develop respiratory symptoms. While the Andes strain can spread between people, it requires very close contact and is not airborne like the flu or COVID-19, so widespread transmission is unlikely.
Passengers and crew on the MV Hondius are advised to remain vigilant for hantavirus symptoms for 45 days from their last possible exposure. Individuals identified as high-risk contacts undergo quarantine and health monitoring to ensure early detection and management of any potential illness.
WHO recommends that travelers return to their home countries and have active surveillance for 42 days, due to the incubation period of hantavirus. “That would include inspections, health checks by the authorities and either quarantine at home or quarantine in a health facility,” Van Kerkhove said.
The 17 Americans aboard the cruise ship disembarked Sunday and will be moved to a quarantine facility in Nebraska, Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN State of the Union.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is following a protocol that was successful for a previous hantavirus outbreak in 2018, Bhattacharya said.
Once they arrive at the National Quarantine Unit, a secure facility on the campus of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, they will be interviewed and assessed for risk.
“If they haven’t been in close contact with someone who has the virus, we’ll consider it low risk; if they haven’t been in close contact with someone, we’ll consider them moderate or high risk,” Bhattacharya said.
The protocol allows travelers to remain at the Nebraska facility to complete their quarantine or return home to complete their quarantine if “their domestic situation permits” and they are supervised by state and local public health authorities with support from the CDC, the acting director said.
Bhattacharya reiterated that the risk of hantavirus transmission is significantly lower than that of Covid-19 and “if the threat level was higher than we would obviously have responded differently,” he said.
Carlos Del Rio, a distinguished professor in the department of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, told Bloomberg This Weekend that this outbreak is not cause for major concern.
“What I would worry about is that we’re going to continue to have epidemics like this,” he said. “Hantavirus on a cruise ship wasn’t on my bingo card of things to happen on a cruise ship, and yet it happened. So we’re going to see more of that.”
His main concern is the “weakened CDC” and the state of health care.
Bhattacharya, who is also the director of the National Institutes of Health, was named acting director of the CDC in mid-February after a year of chaotic leadership changes at the public health agency.
Bhattacharya expressed hope on CNN that the Senate will vote to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee Erica Schwartz, a retired rear admiral in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
More such stories are available at bloomberg.com
