'Race is on' to track contacts of infected cruise ship passengers as three dead
The outbreak has been linked to a birdwatching trip in Argentina
The “race is on” to track contacts of those infected with hantavirus on the MV Hondius cruiseship and determine those who were in close proximity to the vessel, an expert at a Scots university has said.
Some 19 British nationals were listed as passengers on the vessel, which was sailing from Argentina to Cape Verde when the outbreak was first reported, with four British crew members.
Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, has given her assessment of the outbreak which has killed two people and hospitalised several others.
Professor Sridhar said South African scientists confirmed that the strain on the cruise ship is Andes, with human-to-human transmission possible between close contacts.
She added: “Given a high mortality rate and no specific treatments, vaccines or a rapid diagnostic test, an effective containment response is super important. We still don’t know how people were infected initially, and when, or how many more cases might develop given the long incubation period for the virus.
"Right now the race is on to track contacts of those infected and those who were in close proximity on the ship. The next few days will indicate whether the cluster is contained or the virus spreads further. It's better to overreact now with a strong public health response than to wait and watch."
Two Britons who were medically evacuated from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship are improving, the World Health Organisation said.
A 69-year-old man was taken to South Africa on April 27 and is receiving care at a private health facility in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Another Briton, Martin Anstee, 56, was taken off the MV Hondius on Wednesday and flown to the Netherlands to receive specialist medical care. Another patient is also being treated in the Netherlands.
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, from the World Health Organisation (WHO), said: “I am very happy to say the patient in South Africa is doing better, and the two patients in the Netherlands we hear are stable. So that is actually very good news.”
WHO said two doctors are on board along with infectious disease experts from the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), who are conducting a medical assessment of everyone on board.
While the risk to the public is low, there could be more cases due to the incubation period of the Andes virus – the variant of hantavirus linked to the outbreak.
It emerged earlier that seven British people were among 29 passengers who disembarked from the ship mid-way through the cruise on the South Atlantic island of St Helena, along with a Dutch woman who later died.
She had been accompanying her husband’s body, which was being repatriated after he died on the ship on April 11.
Oceanwide Expeditions said guests who disembarked have been contacted.
Two Britons who had already returned from the vessel are isolating at home.
These passengers flew back to the UK via Johannesburg after getting off in St Helena.
UK health experts said British passengers on board will be asked to self-isolate in the UK for 45 days.
Professor Robin May, chief scientific officer at the UKHSA, said “for the broader public, not directly involved in this cruise ship, the risk here is really negligible”.
The Foreign Office is arranging a charter flight so the remaining Britons on board the ship who are not displaying symptoms can be repatriated once they dock in Tenerife in the next few days.
The outbreak has been connected to a birdwatching expedition in Argentina which two of the passengers went on before boarding the ship.
Two Argentine officials told reporters that the couple visited a landfill during the birdwatching tour where they may have been exposed to rodents carrying the infection.
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