Hantavirus victims on the ship Hundius in the Atlantic Ocean may have been infected prior to joining the cruise, and human-to-human transmission on board cannot be ruled out, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
The agency received reports of a hantavirus outbreak on the Hundius on May 2. Seven individuals of the 147 passengers and crew have been reported ill and three have died.
The agency is coordinating with Spanish authorities to direct the ship Hundius to Spain's Canary Islands for medical management, said WHO's chief of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention Maria Van Kerkhove at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
"The plan now is for the ship to continue on to the Canary Islands. We're working with Spanish authorities, as I said, there are no other symptomatic patients who are on board," she said.
According to the WHO official, the virus may have spread to some extent among close contacts on the infected cruise ship.
"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, et cetera. The initial patients, the initial case and his wife, they joined the boat in Argentina. And 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," she said.
Regarding the WHO's plan to direct the infected cruise ship to Canary Islands, the Spanish Ministry of Health said in a social media post on Tuesday that after consulting with the WHO, it had decided to send a medical team to board the ship for inspection and to assess the situation on board that same day, and based on that, make a decision on the vessel's route.
WHO says deadly hantavirus on cruise ship may be transmitted among humans
