The World Health Organization stated that the hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship poses no elevated global risk. Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday there are no similarities to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Three people have died and eight suspected cases are under investigation on board.
The ship departed from Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and left Cape Verde on Wednesday heading to the Canary Islands. The WHO is coordinating contact monitoring but sees no need to convene an emergency committee. Experts note that hantavirus behaves differently from highly transmissible respiratory viruses.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's director of epidemic and pandemic management, told Reuters the virus "is very, very different from Covid and the flu". Primary transmission occurs via infected rodents, and human-to-human spread is rare except for the Andes strain found on the ship, which requires extreme physical closeness.
The WHO assesses that the first infected, a Dutch couple, contracted the virus outside the ship, possibly while birdwatching in Argentina. There is no evidence of mutations increasing transmissibility. Ushuaia authorities consider a local origin for the outbreak unlikely.
