Nine cases of hantavirus, the disease that broke out on board a cruise ship in an unprecedented manner, have been confirmed by laboratory tests worldwide as of this Tuesday, and there are two more with suspected infection, including a person in Spain, who today announced a positive test there.
Global health authorities have said that number of infections among those who were passengers or crew of the M/V Hondius is likely to continue to rise now that everyone has left the ship.
There were more than 150 people on board from 23 countries, and they were living together at sea for weeks before the first of three deaths, on April 6, was suspected to have been due to a possibly contagious issue.
“It can be expected that we will detect more cases in the coming weeks,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said at a press conference on Tuesday. He explained that this is because the incubation period of the hantavirus can last more than a month.
“There was a lot of interaction between the passengers,” he added, emphasizing that for this Andean strain of hantavirus to spread to other people, prolonged and very close contact is necessary, so the risk for the general population is very low.
To ensure it stays that way, those who have disembarked are now under health surveillance or quarantine in almost all the countries to which they have returned.
That includes 18 people who arrived in the United States this week after having been on board, and who were isolated in special pathogen containment facilities in Nebraska and Georgia.
It also includes other Americans who had left the cruise a few weeks ago, and are currently being monitored in states such as California, Virginia, Texas, Maryland and Utah.
The Health Departments of those states have reported that these people have had no symptoms or discomfort so far, and that monitoring will continue for at least 42 days.
(What is the Andean strain of hantavirus? What you should know about the deadly type of infection linked to a cruise ship)
In the case of those who are in good health within the special facilities in Nebraska, if they do not present any symptoms during that period they will be given the opportunity to end confinement at home.
“They are not going to return to their normal daily lives, they are going to be tracked until the 42 days are up,” said Jodie Guest, vice president of the department of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta, where one of the pathogen containment facilities is located.
Outside the United States, quarantine protocols vary.
In Spain, all the people of that nationality who left the ship were taken to a military hospital in Madrid, where tests detected this Tuesday a positive case among 17 people. In British territory there are around twenty people, all being checked in an isolation center that was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, where they will be at least until the end of this week.
In France there is a woman who tested positive on Monday after disembarking and is hospitalized in an intensive care unit, but in a stable condition, according to authorities in that country.
(More than 110 people were infected with a norovirus outbreak on a Florida-based cruise ship)
There are four other French citizens who were on the ship who are quarantined in a hospital, and the Government took strict measures by also forcing the quarantine of about 20 people who were on the same flight as a woman from another country who later tested positive.
The Netherlands, where the first two people who died were from (a couple of ornithologists), is where the largest number of people who disembarked are. Among them there are eight national citizens quarantining at home, and also around thirty passengers or crew members from countries such as Argentina, the Philippines, Guatemala and Portugal who are isolated in a hotel.
In Dutch territory, the M/V Hondius has also already silenced, which will undergo a total disinfection process of both the facilities and the suitcases and belongings of the passengers, who had to leave many things on board to prevent a possible spread of the virus through these objects.
“Countries have taken the lead on this issue, and are implementing the necessary measures,” said the director general of the WHO this Tuesday.
NBC News 4 (Washington) and EFE
