By BBC News World
The World Health Organization (WHO) assured this Thursday that the hantavirus outbreak detected on a cruise ship does not indicate the start of a pandemic.
“I want to be unequivocal about this: this is not SARS-CoV-2. This is not the beginning of a Covid-19 pandemic. This is an outbreak that we are observing on a ship,” said Maria van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic prevention and preparedness at the WHO.
“This is not Covid, this is not influenza; it spreads in a very, very different way,” he added.
Health authorities are actively investigating a hantavirus outbreak detected among passengers of a cruise ship that departed on April 1 from Ushuaia (Argentina).
Three people who were on board the Dutch ship MV Hondius have died since the cruise ship began its journey.
The ship is heading towards the Canary Islands, Spain.
The current director of the WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, indicated in the same appearance that investigations into the course of the outbreak are still ongoing.
Tedros said five cases of hantavirus have been confirmed in connection with this cruise, but more could emerge due to the virus’ six-week incubation period.
Contact tracing is underway in several countries for passengers who left the ship before the outbreak was detected, including the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Hantavirus is a group with more than 20 species of viruses, transmitted mainly by wild rodents, through inhalation of particles present in the urine, feces or saliva of animals.
Tourism in contagion places
Tedros Ghebreyesus explained that the first two cases detected “went through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a bird-watching trip that included visits to places where the species of rat known to carry the virus was present.”
He said the WHO is working with Argentine authorities to determine the couple’s movements.
Tedros noted that in previous outbreaks, human-to-human transmission only occurred due to “prolonged contact,” which he said was what happened in this case.
He noted that when a man presented symptoms aboard the ship on April 9, hantavirus was not suspected, so no samples were taken at that time.
The man’s wife disembarked when the cruise ship docked in St. Helena, and later died in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Tedros assured that the samples taken in South Africa confirmed that they were hantavirus.
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