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(Bloomberg) -- Repatriation flights of passengers aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak began on Sunday.
“We currently have 23 countries that have nationalities on board, either through passengers or crew,” Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, said on Fox News’ The Sunday Briefing. “The operation started this morning at 7:30 local time, and we’ll continue to about 7:30, 8 o’clock tonight, and then continue tomorrow.”
The cruise ship docked in Granadilla Port in Tenerife, Spain, on Sunday, and Van Kerkhove said flights have already left to repatriate passengers to Spain, France, Canada and the Netherlands. Additional flights are planned to Turkey, the UK, Ireland and the US before the end of day. Three people have died since the outbreak began on the ship.
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Hantavirus is a rare but dangerous pathogen typically transmitted through contact with infected rodents, their droppings, or saliva. On cruise ships like the MV Hondius, the outbreak is believed to have originated from possible exposure to rodents during activities like bird-watching in areas where the virus is endemic, such as Argentina.
Early symptoms of hantavirus resemble influenza, including fever, fatigue, headache, and muscle aches. These symptoms typically appear one to eight weeks after exposure. In severe cases, it can progress to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, causing shortness of breath and fluid in the lungs.
Passengers from the MV Hondius are being repatriated on flights to their home countries. The WHO recommends active monitoring for 42 days, which may include health checks, quarantine at home, or in a medical facility, due to the virus's incubation period.
Hantavirus can cause a severe respiratory illness with a significant mortality rate, approximately 38% for those who develop respiratory symptoms. While the Andes strain can spread between humans, it requires very close contact and is not airborne like flu or COVID-19, making widespread transmission unlikely.
Passengers and crew from the MV Hondius are advised to remain vigilant for hantavirus symptoms for 45 days from their last possible exposure. Those identified as high-risk contacts are undergoing quarantine and health monitoring to ensure early detection and management of any potential illness.
The WHO recommends passengers return to their home countries and have active monitoring for 42 days, due to the incubation period of the hantavirus. “This would include checks, health checks by authorities and either be quarantined at home or quarantined in a medical facility,” Van Kerkhove said.
The 17 Americans on board the cruise ship disembarked on Sunday and will be moved to a quarantine facility in Nebraska, Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN’s State of the Union.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is following a protocol that was successful for a previous outbreak of hantavirus in 2018, Bhattacharya said.
Once they arrive at the National Quarantine Unit, a secured facility on the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus in Omaha, they will be interviewed and assessed for risk.
“If they weren’t in close contact with someone who has the virus, we’re gonna deem low risk; if they weren’t in close contact with someone, we’ll deem them medium or high risk,” Bhattacharya said.
The protocol allows the travelers to stay in the Nebraska unit to complete their quarantine or return home to complete their quarantine if “their home situation allows it” and they will be under the supervision of state and local public health agencies with CDC support, the acting director said.
Bhattacharya reiterated that hantavirus’ risk of transmission is significantly lower than that of Covid-19 and “if the threat level were higher than we would have obviously reacted differently,” he said.
Carlos Del Rio, a distinguished professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, told Bloomberg This Weekend that this outbreak was not cause for major concern.
“What I’d be worried about is that we’d continue to have outbreaks like this one,” he said. “A hantavirus on a cruise ship was not on my bingo card of things that was going to happen on a cruise ship, and yet it happened. So we’re going to see more like this one.”
His main worry is about a “weakened CDC” and the state of health care.
Bhattacharya, who is also the director of the National Institutes of Health, was named the CDC acting director in mid-February after a year of chaotic leadership changes in the public health agency.
Bhattacharya, on CNN, expressed his hopes that the Senate would vote to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee Erica Schwartz, a retired rear admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service.
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