The World Health Organization (WHO) is trying to locate the more than 80 passengers aboard the Hondius ship in which a Dutch cruise passenger, infected with hantavirus, was transferred from the island of St. Helena to Johannesburg.
The 69-year-old Dutch woman, whose 70-year-old husband died aboard the ship, landed in St. Helena on April 24 “with gastrointestinal symptoms” and boarded a flight the following day to Johannesburg, South Africa, according to information released today by the WHO.
The ship is still of the island of Praia in Cabo Verde, where they refuse to let the ship in port. The WHO have saud it will rmeither go to Gran Canaria or Tenerife in the Canaries to let the passengers off, but this is not yet confirmed.
The woman died in a hospital on April 26, and her hantavirus infection was confirmed on Monday.
“A search has been launched to locate the passengers” of the flight that operated this route, the organization added in a statement.
Authorities are searching for people from a flight operated by South African airline Airlink on April 25, with 82 passengers and six crew members on board, Karin Murray, Airlink’s sales and marketing director, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The WHO, through its acting director of the Department of Prevention and Preparedness, Maria Van Kerkhove, indicated that it suspects “person-to-person transmission among individuals in very close contact”.
Only one weekly flight connects Johannesburg to this remote South Atlantic island, and the flight takes approximately four hours.
South African authorities have asked the airline to inform affected passengers to contact the Ministry of Health if they have not already been contacted, Murray added.
The MV Hondius ship, suspected of being a source of hantavirus, is expected to leave the Cape Verde archipelago in the coming hours, following the medical evacuation of two sick crew members and one contact case.
Next, the ship is expected to sail to the Canary Islands or the Netherlands, Ann Lindstrand, WHO representative in Cape Verde, told AFP on Tuesday.
The WHO reported on Sunday three deaths linked to a possible outbreak of hantavirus, which can cause acute respiratory syndrome, aboard the ship.
The ship, carrying 149 people (88 passengers) of 23 nationalities, was traveling between Ushuaia, Argentina, from where it departed on March 20, and the Canary Islands, with stops in the South Atlantic for wildlife observation tourism.
According to the WHO, reports of illness on board were received between April 6 and 28, mainly fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, with rapid progression to pneumonia, acute respiratory syndrome and shock.
The WHO currently assesses the risk to the global population from this outbreak as low and says it will continue to monitor the epidemiological situation and update its risk assessment.