WHO Says Hantavirus Risk Is Low as Passengers Prepare to Leave Ship

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on May 9 that hantavirus “is not another COVID” situation and suggested that the public health risk will remain low, as about 150 people prepare to exit an outbreak-ridden cruise ship.

The United Nations agency, which is responsible for global public health, acknowledged that the outbreak of hantavirus on the cruise ship, the MV Hondius, was “serious” but will likely not affect locals as they move passengers from the vessel to Spain’s Canary Islands on May 10, according to a statement on May 9 by WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest,” Ghebreyesus said.

“The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment.”

Nearly 150 people from 23 countries—including 17 Americans—have been stranded at sea for weeks after the outbreak of the Andes strain of hantavirus occurred.

This strain on the ship is the only type of hantavirus that can be transmitted from human to human. Generally, the virus is transmitted to humans if they make contact with infected rodent urine, droppings, or saliva, or if they inhale contaminated particles, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The WHO was first notified of the health scare aboard the ship on May 2.

The agency has since confirmed that at least eight people were either suspected or confirmed to have hantavirus. Three people have died.

On May 10, passengers will be ferried ashore at an industrial port in the Canary Islands, which is not near residential areas, put into sealed and guarded vehicles through a “completely cordoned-off corridor,” and sent on a plane directly to their home countries, according to the WHO statement.

People will not be allowed to disembark the ship until their evacuation plane is ready to depart.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sending a team of epidemiologists and medical personnel to conduct an exposure risk assessment for each American aboard the ship before they are evacuated to a quarantine facility in Omaha, Nebraska.

President Donald Trump said the United States is doing the most it can to make sure the virus stays contained.

“It’s very much, we hope, under control,” Trump told reporters on May 7. “It was the ship. And I think we’re going to make a full report about it tomorrow. We have a lot of great people studying it. It should be fine, we hope.”

Aldgra Fredly and George Citroner contributed to this report.