Countries race to track cruise ship passengers, WHO says hantavirus outbreak not start of pandemic
發佈日期: 2026-05-08 21:42
TVB News
The World Health Organization and a dozen countries are scrambling to trace a cluster of passengers who have recently disembarked from a Dutch vessel linked to hantavirus outbreak.
Authorities say the outbreak aboard the MV Hondius has so far resulted in three deaths. Five of the eight infection cases have been confirmed as hantavirus, and the other three are suspected.
The cruise liner is currently sailing for Spain's Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa after anchoring at a port in Cape Verde. The Spanish Health Ministry said its arrival at the islands was expected in "three to four days."
The ship owners confirmed that 114 guests boarded on April 1st in Ushuaia, Argentina. On the 24th of the same month, 29 individuals and the body of a passenger who passed away on board disembarked on the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena.
They come from 12 countries including the US, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Singapore.
The UK health ministry says two British nationals are self-isolating at home after potential exposure to the virus, while South Africa is also tracing 62 contacts of patients.
Two passengers evacuated from the Hondius were taken off to hospitals in the Netherlands.
A Dutch news outlet reported a KLM flight attendant has been hospitalised in Amsterdam with a suspected hantavirus infection after she came in contact with one of the sickened cruise ship passengers in Johannesburg, South Africa who later died.
The World Health Organization on Thursday reiterated there's no cause for panic and it is "not the start of an epidemic," stepping up its call on those who have contracted the virus to take proper protective measures.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference that the health agency assesses the public health risk on Canary Islands as low.
Spain claims that none of the remaining passengers or crew on the ship presented new, overt symptoms.
Meanwhile, in the United States, local officials say at least seven passengers have returned to their home states including Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Virginia, adding those individuals are not symptomatic at the moment. President Donald Trump said "it's very much, we hope, under control".
The WHO said the Andes strain of hantavirus identified on the infected patients are mostly found in Argentina and Chile. The number of infections surpassed 100 in Argentina in the past year with 32 reported deaths.
