MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cape Verde denies docking to hantavirus-hit cruise ship as WHO confirms seven cases

Aboard the Dutch-flagged Hondius are 147 passengers and crew members of 23 nationalities, including 17 Americans and at least 4 Canadians

Cape Verde's health authorities on Monday denied permission to dock at the port of Praia to polar cruise ship MV Hondius, on board which the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed seven cases of hantavirus — two of them laboratory-verified — and three deaths linked to the voyage. The decision leaves the nearly 150 people remaining on board in prolonged isolation in Atlantic waters, while medical evacuations are coordinated for patients in the most serious condition and authorities evaluate the possibility of continuing the journey toward the Canary Islands, on Spanish territory.

“In coordination with other authorities, the vessel was not granted authorisation to dock at the port of Praia,” Maria da Luz Lima, president of Cape Verde's National Institute of Public Health, told Radio Cabo Verde. The measure was adopted as a precaution to “protect the Cape Verdean population,” according to a statement from the country's Health Ministry. A local medical team boarded the vessel to assess symptomatic patients and provide specialised treatment to those who required it.

Aboard the Dutch-flagged Hondius are 147 passengers and crew members of 23 nationalities, including 17 Americans and at least 4 Canadians, according to operator Oceanwide Expeditions. Two crew members — one British and one Dutch — require urgent medical attention. The Netherlands is coordinating consular assistance and preparing an air evacuation with specialised aircraft, while a 69-year-old British patient remains hospitalised in critical condition at a private clinic in Johannesburg, where he was confirmed as positive for hantavirus.

The fatalities identified are a Dutch couple — the husband, aged 70, died on April 11 on the British island of Saint Helena, and the wife, aged 69, died after disembarking in South Africa — and a German passenger who died on May 2, whose cause of death has not yet been established. The Dutch passenger was confirmed as a positive case following post-mortem tests. Symptoms among those infected range from fever and gastrointestinal illness to rapidly progressing pneumonia, respiratory failure, and shock, with disease onset recorded between April 6 and April 28.

 

WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Henri Kluge said that “the risk to the wider public remains low. There is no need for panic or travel restrictions.” The organisation is coordinating with the countries involved on evacuation efforts, epidemiological investigations and genetic sequencing of the virus, in an effort to identify the specific strain. The Andes virus, found in Argentina and Chile, is the only hantavirus variant with documented cases of human-to-human transmission, according to experts consulted, a circumstance that takes on relevance given that the Hondius set sail on March 20 from the Argentine port of Ushuaia. The ship's itinerary included stops in Antarctica, the South Georgia Islands, Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena, and Ascension before reaching Cape Verdean waters on May 3.