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Dozens of Passengers Disembark Hantavirus-Stricken Cruise Ship Without Contact Tracing
At least 29 passengers left the MV Hondius on April 24 at St. Helena after the first death from a hantavirus outbreak, according to the ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions and Dutch officials. Three passengers have died and at least eight others have fallen ill from a rare strain capable of human-to-human transmission.
May 7, 6:40 AM·3m read15 sources
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At least 29 passengers left the MV Hondius cruise ship on April 24 at the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena without formal contact tracing, nearly two weeks after the first fatality from a hantavirus outbreak occurred on board. The ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions and Dutch officials disclosed the details on Thursday, confirming that the passengers were of at least 12 different nationalities with two others unknown.
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Dutch authorities said the number who disembarked was closer to 40. The first victim, a Dutch man, died on April 11. His body was taken ashore at St. Helena along with his wife, who later died in South Africa. A Swiss man who also left the ship at St.
Helena has since tested positive for hantavirus after returning home. Three passengers have now died in the outbreak and at least eight others have fallen ill. Investigators believe the rare Andes strain of hantavirus, which can spread between people and has a mortality rate of about 40 percent, is responsible.
The World Health Organization has said the working hypothesis is that the initial cases were infected before boarding in Ushuaia, Argentina.
Argentine officials are racing to determine whether the virus originated in their country, where the MV Hondius began its voyage to Antarctica and then West Africa on March 20. The nation is ranked by the World Health Organization as having the highest incidence of hantavirus in Latin America.
Local investigators suspect the Dutch couple may have contracted the rodent-borne virus during a bird-watching tour that included a visit to a landfill in Ushuaia, though neither that site nor the surrounding province of Tierra del Fuego had previously recorded a case.
