International public health investigators say the suspected hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean may be driven by rare human-to-human transmission and may not have originated on the ship.
Three passengers have died and one is hospitalized in intensive care. In all, seven passengers and crew are reported to have become ill among the 149 passengers and crew who set sail on the multi-week cruise.
The ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said Monday two crew members on board “require urgent medical care” and one has severe respiratory symptoms. The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that authorities plan to medically evacuate the two patients for treatment. The Dutch ship is currently off the coast of Cabo Verde.
Oceanwide said two specialized aircraft will evacuate the two patients to the Netherlands, and once those patients are safely transferred, the ship “will begin repositioning” on a planned three-day journey to the Canary Islands.
People are typically infected with hantavirus through exposure to rodent droppings. WHO officials said Tuesday the initial victims may have been infected on land prior to joining the cruise.
“With the timing of the incubation period of hantavirus, which can be anywhere from one to six weeks, our assumption is that they were infected off the ship,” WHO infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove told reporters. “This was an expedition boat… many of the people on board were doing bird watching. They were doing lots of things with wildlife.”
The first passengers who died, a Dutch husband and wife, boarded in Argentina. While human-to-human transmission of the hantavirus is rare, a strain of the virus endemic to Argentina has been documented to have spread among people.
“We do believe that there may be some human-to-human transmission that's happening among the really close contacts, the husband and wife, people who have shared cabins,” Van Kerkhove said.
Oceanwide Expeditions said 17 Americans are among the passengers still on board. Passengers are being told to stay in their cabins. The WHO sought to reassure those on board on Tuesday that public health authorities are working to keep them safe.
“We hear you. We know that you are scared,” Van Kerkhove said. “We're trying to make sure that the ship has as much information as they can…that you're cared for and of course, that you get home safely.”
