MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Three dead in hantavirus outbreak aboard polar cruise ship from Ushuaia bound for Cape Verde

The current itinerary included stops at the Falklands, the South Georgia Islands, and Saint Helena. According to maritime tracking websites, the ship was on Sunday off the port of Praia

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed three deaths on Sunday aboard the polar cruise ship MV Hondius from a hantavirus outbreak, a disease typically transmitted through rodents. The vessel, operated by the Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions, had set sail from the port of Ushuaia, in Argentina's Tierra del Fuego province, on March 20, bound for the port of Praia in Cape Verde, where its journey was scheduled to conclude on May 4.

“WHO has been informed of a public health event involving a cruise ship in the Atlantic and is providing support. To date, one case of hantavirus infection has been laboratory-confirmed, and there are five additional suspected cases. Of the six affected individuals, three have died and one remains in intensive care in South Africa,” the organisation told the AFP news agency. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organisation was facilitating “the medical evacuation of two symptomatic passengers” and working “closely with Member States and the ship's operators.”

The first two fatalities were a Dutch couple. The husband, aged 70, died upon arrival at the British island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, after developing fever, headache, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea. His wife, aged 69, was evacuated to South Africa and died at a Johannesburg hospital, according to Foster Mohale, spokesman for South Africa's Health Ministry, in statements to the BBC. A third victim, whose nationality was not specified by authorities, died on board. A 69-year-old British national remains in critical condition in intensive care in Johannesburg, according to the United Kingdom's Foreign Office.

The MV Hondius is a 107.6-metre polar vessel with capacity for 170 passengers distributed across 80 cabins, plus 57 crew members, 13 guides, and one doctor. It is a frequent visitor to the port of Ushuaia during the southern summer season, primarily for Antarctic expeditions. The current itinerary included stops at the Falklands, the South Georgia Islands, and Saint Helena. According to maritime tracking websites, the ship was on Sunday off the port of Praia. Sources consulted by the AFP news agency indicated that hospital isolation in Cape Verde was being considered for two symptomatic passengers and that the vessel would then continue on to Spain's Canary Islands.

The outbreak comes against a backdrop of a health alert in Argentina over a rise in hantavirus cases in recent weeks. However, health authorities in Tierra del Fuego and the private healthcare sector in Ushuaia ruled out recent local infections, according to the daily newspaper La Nación. Epidemiological investigation will seek to determine the exact origin of the outbreak, in a complex scenario given the ship's long journey and the diverse origins of the passengers, most of them international tourists. Hantavirus can cause severe pulmonary syndrome and, in rare cases, be transmitted between humans, according to WHO.