Hantavirus outbreak risk to public ‘absolutely low’ — WHO

The World Health Organisation said Friday that the risk to the public of a deadly Hantavirus strain in a cruise ship outbreak was minimal, as it spreads only through “very close contact”. “This is a dangerous virus, but only to the person who’s really infected, and the risk to the general population remains absolutely low,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva. He pointed out that even people who had stayed in the same cabins on the stricken MV Hondius cruise ship “don’t seem to be both infected in some cases”.

The Health body had said on Thursday that more hantavirus cases could emerge after the disease killed three passengers from a cruise ship, but it expected the outbreak to be limited if precautions were taken. Another sick passenger from the MV Hondius landed in Europe earlier in the day, as the vessel headed to the Spanish Canary Islands, and health officials scrambled to trace the outbreak of the potentially deadly human to human strain. The fate of the Hondius sparked international alarm after three people travelling on it died, though health officials have played down fears of a wider global outbreak from the rat borne virus, which is less contagious than Covid 19.

US President Donald Trump said Thursday he had been briefed on the situation. “It’s very much, we hope, under control,” Trump told reporters. “It was the ship — and I think we’re going to make a full report about it tomorrow. We have a lot of great people studying it… It should be fine, we hope.” A Dutch couple who had travelled around South America before boarding the ship in Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 were the first fatalities. Argentine health authorities said Thursday they had not yet been able to establish where the outbreak began.

“With the information provided so far by the countries involved and participating national agencies, it is not possible to confirm the origin of the infection,” the health ministry said after a meeting with authorities from all 24 Argentine provinces.