An escape is planned as a suspected hantavirus outbreak traps 150 people, including 4 Canadians, on a cruise ship.
Doctors were working Monday to remove two people with symptoms of the deadly hantavirus after the outbreak broke out on a luxury cruise ship in West Africa carrying mostly British, American and Spanish passengers, officials said.
About 150 people, including four Canadians, were still stranded on the ship after three people – a Dutch couple and a German – died and others fell ill, including a Briton who left the ship for treatment in South Africa, according to authorities.
CBC News has asked Global Affairs Canada if it has any information on the conditions of the Canadians on board, but has yet to receive a response.
Hantavirus, which can cause a fatal respiratory illness, can spread when particles from rodent droppings or urine become airborne. It is not easily transmitted between people.
There are no specific drugs to treat this disease, so treatment focuses on supportive care, including putting patients on ventilators in severe cases.
The World Health Organization has said the risk to the wider community is low and there is no need for panic or travel restrictions. But authorities in the island state of Cape Verde said they did not allow the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius to dock as a precaution.
“We’re not just headlines. We’re people with families, lives, and people waiting for us at home,” said Jake Rosmarin, a US travel blogger, in an Instagram video of tears on the ship on Monday.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty and that’s the hardest part.”
Hantavirus suspected to have spread on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean has killed three people and sickened at least three others, the World Health Organization and South Africa’s Department of Health said on Sunday.
‘Strong precautions’
The operator of the ship based in the Netherlands, Oceanwide Expeditions, said he is looking into whether passengers can be checked and disembarked at the islands of Las Palmas and Tenerife.
It was trying to organize the repatriation of two members of the group with symptoms of the disease – one British and one Dutch – as well as the body of a German national and a “tourist closely related to the deceased” who had no symptoms.
“Strong security measures are still in place,” he said.
The Hondius left Ushuaia in southern Argentina in March, according to company documents, on a trip marketed as an Antarctic nature tour, with prices ranging from 14,000 to 22,000 euros ($22,000-$35,000 Cdn).
Passed the continent of Antarctica, Falklands, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan, St. Helena and Ascension before arriving in Cape Verdean waters on 3 May.
The Ministry of Health in South Africa confirmed that two of the dead were from the Netherlands: a 70-year-old man who died in St. Helena on April 11, with his wife, 69, who died a few weeks later in South Africa after falling at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg.
According to a recent press release from Oceanwide Expeditions, it is not yet clear whether the Dutch couple died of hantavirus.
A British man treated at a private clinic in Johannesburg fell ill on April 27, and a German victim on board died on May 2, Oceanwide Expeditions said.
The cause of death of the German victim has also not been confirmed yet, according to Oceanwide Expeditions.
The source is still unclear
Hantavirus usually starts with flu-like symptoms, such as fatigue and fever, one to eight weeks after exposure.
A spokesman for the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) of the Netherlands, said its source was not yet clear.
“You might think, for example, that the rats on the ship are spreading the virus,” he said.
“But another possibility is that during a stopover somewhere in South America, people got infected, for example by rats, and got sick that way.”
Since many people are infected with this virus, the veterinarian Dr. Scott Weese says they may all have been infected by a single source – which could be just one rat.
“It doesn’t take thousands and thousands of mice. All it takes is, you know, one that might be in the right condition to cause an infection,” said Weese, who is also a professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
He also added that the investigation on the ship may include looking at where the infected people live or spend time on the ship, and if they are interacting with each other.
Daniel Bausch, a visiting professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland, said there is some evidence of human-to-human transmission of the Andes virus, a type of hantavirus found in Argentina and Chile.
“So it is important that this cruise ship starts its journey in Argentina,” he said.
“The good news is … this won’t be a major outbreak.”
