Hantavirus latest: Cruise ship to dock in Tenerife early Sunday as UK sends plane to evacuate passengers

Cruises are sold as floating holidays, but they are also useful for understanding public health. Cruise ships are carefully designed places where many people live, eat, relax and move through the same shared spaces for days at a time. They show how easily illness can spread when people are packed into a single interconnected environment.

Think of a cruise ship as a temporary city at sea. It has restaurants, theatres, lifts, cabins, kitchens, water systems and indoor gathering spaces. That is great for convenience, but it also means that once an infection gets on board, it can move through the ship in ways that are hard to stop.

The Diamond Princess outbreak is perhaps the best-known example. During the 2020 COVID outbreak, 619 passengers and crew tested positive for the disease. Researchers found that the ship conditions made the novel coronavirus spread more easily. Their modelling suggested that public health measures, such as isolation and quarantine, prevented many more cases, but it also showed that an earlier response would have further limited the outbreak.

Norovirus (the so-called vomiting bug) is the infection most closely linked to cruise ships. In a review of previously published studies, researchers found 127 reports of norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships, with many linked to contaminated food, contaminated surfaces and person-to-person spread. A more recent report from the US also showed that norovirus can spread very rapidly from person to person on a cruise ship.

This helps explain why ships such as Celebrity Mercury, Explorer of the Seas and Carnival Triumph have become familiar names in outbreak reports. These were not unusual in some special way; they were simply settings where shared dining, close contact and frequent movement through common areas allowed infection to spread fast.

British health authorities confirmed on Friday that a third British national aboard the MV Hondius was suspected of being infected with hantavirus.

The UK Health Security Agency said the person is on the island of Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory in the south Atlantic where the ship stopped in April.

Another two British men, one who was a doctor on the ship, are receiving treatment in the Netherlands and South Africa.

Martin Anstee, a 56 year old expedition guide, was one of the hantavirus patients evacuated from the boat on Wednesday.

The ship’s 41 year old British doctor was also removed.

The sight of people in hazmat suits alongside phrases like ‘self-isolation’ dominating the airwaves is bringing back troubling memories for Katie Rosseinsky, who considers whether we should all start stocking up on toilet roll:

As the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak sails towards Tenerife, World Health Organization officials are racing to draw up step-by-step guidance for what should happen next for the nearly 150 passengers ⁠when they finally reach land on Sunday.

Because this is the first ever hantavirus outbreak recorded on a cruise ship, official say new protocols are needed.

WHO officials and hantavirus experts said the outbreak could be managed by adapting standard public health steps, like isolating sick passengers or those ⁠who may have been in contact with them.

None of the ​passengers ⁠on the ship now have symptoms, the ship’s operator has said.

Officials are also seeking tips from Argentina, where a previous outbreak of the Andes virus, the same strain as on ⁠the ship, was snuffed out in 2019.

“If we follow public health measures and the lessons we learned from Argentina we can break this chain of transmission. This doesn’t need to be a large epidemic,” Abdi Rahman Mahamud, director of the WHO’s alert and response coordination department, said.

• Fever
• Extreme fatigue
• Muscle aches
• Stomach pain
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhoea
• Shortness of breath
• Symptoms usually appear between 2 to 4 weeks after being exposed to the virus, but there are reports of symptoms occurring up to 40 days after exposure.

There is currently no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment for hantavirus infections.

Treatment is supportive and based on symptoms, such as hospital care and respiratory support for breathing difficulties.

The Independent’s Alisha Rahaman Sarkar writes:

Two Singaporeans who were on board the MV Hondius cruise ship struck by a hantavirus outbreak have tested negative for the virus, the island nation’s Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA) has confirmed.

The CDA’s public health laboratory conducted testing on multiple samples collected from the individuals ​and confirmed that hantavirus, including the Andes virus, was not detected, ​it said.

The Singaporeans on board the MV Hondius – two men aged 67 and 65 – were isolated at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. ​They were on board the cruise ship when it departed from the Argentinian port of Ushuaia ‌on ⁠1 April, the CDA said in a statement.

The duo will be quarantined for 30 days from the date of last exposure as an added precaution and will undergo further testing before being released. They will then be ​monitored through phone ​surveillance for the ⁠remainder of 45 days, the maximum incubation period for hantavirus exposure.

“The risk to the general public in Singapore ​remains low,” the agency said, adding it was closely ​monitoring the ⁠situation.

The head of the World ⁠Health Organisation has touched down in Spain today, where he will join senior ⁠government ​officials in ⁠Tenerife to oversee the ⁠evacuation of passengers ​on the hantavirus-hit cruise ship.

Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebrey said he was in contact with the ship’s captain and a WHO colleague that is on board the boat.

There are no additional people on ⁠board showing symptoms of ‌Hantavirus, he said.

Donald Trump said yesterday that hantavirus was “under very good control” in the US.

”We have it,” he told reporters. “We have very good people looking at it. It seems to be okay. They know the virus very well, they’ve worked with it for a long time.

“[It’s] not easy to pass on. We hope that’s true.”

He added it was “not easily transferable, unlike Covid.”

Asked if the US would consider leaving the World Health Organisation over the outbreak, he said: “No, we seem to have things under very good control.”

In an update on Friday, the US centre for disease control (CDC), said: “To date, no cases of Andes virus have been reported in the United States as a result of this outbreak.

“At this time, the overall risk to travellers and the American public remains extremely low. Routine travel can continue as normal.

“CDC is working with the US state department and other US government partners to get Americans on the ship home as quickly and as safely as possible.”