Three patients suspected of having the hantavirus have been evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship and are on their way to the Netherlands to receive medical care, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The three are British, German and Dutch, and the British national is a crew member, according to the WHO.
The rare outbreak of the virus has already killed three.
In the latest twist in the hellish ordeal for the 150 or so passengers on board, the leader of the Canary Islands has rejected a plan for the ship to dock there.
The plan, coordinated between the Spanish government and the WHO, had been for the ship to head to the Canary Islands for a “full investigation” and “full inspection” after the three were evacuated.
But the leader of the archipelago’s regional government, Fernando Clavijo, rejected the idea Wednesday, saying he has requested a meeting with Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
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In a social media post Wednesday, Clavijo, who is part of the conservative opposition, wrote: “The Canary Islands always acts with responsibility, but it cannot accept decisions taken behind the backs of the Canary Islands institutions and without sufficient information to the population.”
A flight planned to evacuate a sick doctor from the ship to the Canary Islands has been cancelled, a source close to the regional presidency told the French news agency AFP on Wednesday.
The news comes as South African authorities confirmed Wednesday that they had identified the so-called Andes strain of the hantavirus in two people previously on the cruise. The Andes strain, which is found primarily in Argentina and Chile, can be transmitted from human to human, unlike most other strains of the virus.
Also on Wednesday, Swiss authorities announced that a man who previously travelled on the ship and returned home at the end of April has also tested positive for the Andes strain of the virus.
“There is currently no risk to the Swiss public,” they said in a statement.
That brings the total number of confirmed cases to eight, according to the WHO.
The ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said two infectious disease specialists were en route Wednesday from the Netherlands to the ship and will “remain with the vessel after its anticipated departure from Cape Verde.”
The Dutch-flagged MV Hontius, a luxury cruise-liner, left Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1. It has been anchored off the island of Cape Verde off Africa’s west coast since Sunday.
Ann Lindstrand, the WHO’s representative in Cape Verde, told CBS News’ Ramy Inocencio on Tuesday that there is no risk of a pandemic-level threat with the hantavirus, given the low likelihood of human-to-human transmission.
Spanish and Dutch authorities are “intensely discussing” what will happen next to the passengers on board, she added. They have been told to remain in their cabins as much as possible.
“If there is the need for a quarantine, that will be a decision of the health authorities in Spain or Holland at that point in time, with the close collaboration with the advice of WHO,” Lindstrand said.
If needed, a quarantine could last as long as two months, since the incubation period for hantavirus is between one and eight weeks, she said.
“Eight weeks is a horribly long time to be in quarantine,” she added.
Lindstrand said she is in touch with a volunteer doctor on the boat who told her that passengers were “coping surprisingly well,” though they are anxious to know what their next port of call will be.