The U.S. is among a number of countries working to prevent further spread of hantavirus after an outbreak on a cruise ship.
Authorities are racing to trace dozens of people who disembarked from the MV Hondius.
The operator of the Dutch vessel, Oceanwide Expeditions, said 29 passengers, including six Americans, could be at risk of carrying the virus after they left the MV Hondius at St. Helena on April 24, shortly after the first passenger died.
Advertisement Advertisement
Dutch officials had previously put the number at about 40. The whereabouts of many of these passengers are unknown.
People who contracted hantavirus were "in close contact" in a specific confined situation, World Health Organization experts said.
Infectious disease epidemiologist Maria DeJoseph Van Kerkhove urged people not to panic, adding during a press briefing: “This is not COVID, this is not influenza; it spreads very, very differently.”
People in three U.S. states are reportedly being monitored for potential hantavirus infections after traveling on the cruise ship.
According to a New York Times report, people in California, Georgia and Arizona were being monitored, though none had shown signs of illness.
Advertisement Advertisement
Three people — a Dutch couple and a German national — died in the outbreak on the MV Hondius. In all, eight people, including a Swiss citizen, are suspected of having contracted the virus.
The number of confirmed cases has risen to five, the World Health Organization said.
On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that U.S. travelers were being monitored, but that the risk to the American public was extremely low at the time.
The Georgia Department of Public Health said it was monitoring two residents who had returned home after disembarking from the cruise ship, according to Reuters. Arizona health officials were checking one individual. None were showing any signs of infection.
Advertisement Advertisement
So far, one of the five confirmed cases of hantavirus has died. The deaths of the other two have not been confirmed to be from the virus.
Two of the confirmed cases were among the three patients evacuated to the Netherlands on Wednesday to receive medical care. The third evacuated patient has no symptoms but was "closely associated" with a passenger who died on May 2 and is being tested.
The cruise ship has been cleared to continue its voyage and has departed Cape Verde for Spain’s Canary Islands, which will take three to four days, according to Oceanwide Expeditions, the Dutch company operating the cruise.
Despite opposition from local officials, Spain’s health minister has doubled down on the plan for the ship to dock on the island of Tenerife.
Advertisement Advertisement
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he has been in contact with the ship’s captain daily, who reported passengers were in better spirits since the ship began moving again.
Hantavirus is typically passed from rodents to humans through feces, saliva or urine. It can cause severe respiratory illness and can be fatal. Human-to-human transmission is rare. In the three confirmed cases on the cruise ship, the patients tested positive for the Andes strain, which can be transmitted among people.