PRAIA, Cape Verde — Three patients with suspected hantavirus infections were being evacuated from a cruise ship to the Netherlands on Wednesday, the U.N. health agency said, as the vessel at the center of a deadly outbreak remained off Cape Verde with nearly 150 people on board waiting to head to Spain's Canary Islands.
Associated Press footage showed health workers in protective gear heading to the ship for the evacuation that included the ship's Dutch doctor, who Spain's health ministry said had been in “serious condition” but has improved. An air ambulance later departed.
Three people have died, and one body remained on the ship, the World Health Organization said. Eight cases have been recorded in all, three of them confirmed by laboratory testing.
Contact tracing had begun on two continents, Europe and Africa, in search of infections around people who earlier left the ship, which departed over a month ago from South America for stops in Antarctica and several remote Atlantic islands. Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and can spread person-to-person, though the WHO calls that rare.
The Dutch foreign ministry said the three evacuated were a 41-year-old Dutch national, a 56-year-old British national and a 65-year-old German national who would be "immediately transferred to specialized hospitals in Europe.” A Dutch hospital confirmed it would take one, and German authorities said they were preparing for a second.
Two “remain in a serious condition," Dutch ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said, and the third had no symptoms but was “closely associated” with a German passenger who died on the MV Hondius ship on May 2.
Spanish officials said passengers and crew members still on the ship are without symptoms. Their journey to the Canary Islands will take three or four days, Spain’s health ministry said, adding that the arrival “won´t represent any risk for the public."
Meanwhile, authorities in Switzerland and South Africa said three people had tested positive for the Andes strain of the virus. The WHO says the species of hantavirus is found in South America, primarily in Argentina and Chile, and can spread between people, though that’s rare and only through close contact.
The wide-ranging ship has been at sea for over a month
The ship left Argentina on April 1. The WHO has said the itinerary included stops across the South Atlantic, including mainland Antarctica and the remote islands of South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension.
The ship is now in the Atlantic off West Africa's island nation of Cape Verde. The WHO said passengers were isolating in their cabins.
“At this stage, the overall public health risk remains low,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Harald Wychgel, a spokesperson for the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, said two doctors were on their way to join the ship.
Spain’s health ministry said it would receive the ship in the Canary Islands after a request from the WHO and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. The Canary Islands regional president , Fernando Clavijo, said he worried about the risk to the population and demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Officials rush to determine passenger's travel after leaving ship
Authorities in Switzerland said a former passenger was being treated at a Zurich hospital after testing positive for the Andes strain. South African authorities earlier said two passengers who were transferred there tested positive for the strain. One, a British man, was in intensive care and the other collapsed and died in South Africa.
Swiss health office spokesperson Simon Ming in an email said the patient there had left the ship during its St. Helena stop. It was not immediately clear when or how he traveled to Switzerland.
The patient’s wife hasn’t shown symptoms but is self-isolating as a precaution, a statement by the office said. Health experts say the incubation period for the virus is 45 days.
“There is currently no risk to the Swiss public," the office said, while looking into whether the patient had come into contact with others.
South Africa looks for people who had possible contact
At St. Helena, the body of the Dutch man suspected to be the first hantavirus case on board was taken off the ship. His wife flew to South Africa, where she collapsed at the Johannesburg airport and died.
Later, a British man was evacuated at Ascension Island and taken to South Africa.
The ship's operator has not said if other people left at those or other locations.
The South African health ministry says officials have traced 42 out of 62 people, including health workers, they believe had contact with the two infected passengers who traveled there. The 42 tested negative for hantavirus.
But 20 people still need to be traced, including five people who may have been on flights to South Africa with some of the passengers as well as flight crew members.
Some may have now traveled overseas, the ministry said.
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Keaten reported from Geneva and Asadu from Abuja, Nigeria. Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa; Renata Brito and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands and Michelle Gumede and Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
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