A small polar expedition ship carrying about 147 passengers and crew is expected to dock in Tenerife, Spain in the early morning of Sunday, May 10. hantavirus outbreak It has killed three people and triggered an international public health response in more than a dozen countries.
this Hondius Not a mainstream cruise ship. The 170-passenger ship, operated by Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions, specializes in remote polar voyages to Antarctica, the Arctic and isolated islands in the South Atlantic.
The ship embarked on its Atlantic Odyssey from the southern tip of Argentina on April 1, carrying passengers from 23 countries.
Here is how the outbreak unfolded:
April 1: this Hondius Depart Ushuaia, Argentina for a transatlantic adventure cruise.
April 6: A 70-year-old male passenger developed fever, headache, and gastrointestinal symptoms.
April 11: Passenger died on board. The cause of death has not been determined to be hantavirus.
April 24: The bodies of the passengers were removed from the ship during a call at St. Helena, a remote British territory in the South Atlantic. His 69-year-old wife, also a passenger, disembarked and boarded a flight to Johannesburg. She died on April 26.
Test results on May 4 confirmed she was Infection with hantavirus. On the same day, more than two dozen other passengers disembarked from St. Helens without contact tracing and were dispersed to at least 12 countries.
April 27: A second sick passenger was flown from Ascension Island to South Africa for medical evacuation. The test results on May 2 confirmed hantavirus infection. The passenger remains hospitalized in the intensive care unit.
May 2: A German woman who had been showing symptoms since April 28 died on board the ship. Hantavirus was officially confirmed for the first time in passengers on board the ship.
May 3: this Hondius Arrive in Cape Verde. this World Health Organization Confirmed response to suspected hantavirus outbreak. Three other passengers on board were reportedly sick.
May 6: After Cape Verde was deemed unable to cope with the scale of evacuation required, Boat departure to Tenerife Canary Islands in Spain.
May 9 (current): this Hondius It is en route to Tenerife, where it is expected to dock on Sunday. Spain established an isolated staging area in the port of Granadilla. Passengers will be transported directly to repatriation flights in guarded, cordoned-off vehicles.
The United States will send a government medical plane to bring back the 17 Americans on board; they will be quarantined in National Quarantine Center University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Britain also chartered a plane with about two dozen nationals on board. As of Friday, no one on the ship was reported to have active symptoms.
CDC upgrades to level 3
this CDC The Emergency Operations Center has been activated to Level 3, the lowest of three activation levels, to monitor the situation.
The World Health Organization assessed the public health risk as low, and a flight attendant who had brief contact with the infected passenger tested negative for the virus.
Health officials in at least five U.S. states and two New Jersey residents are being monitored as a precaution; none are showing symptoms.
Hantaviruses are primarily spread through contact with infected rodent feces, rather than through casual contact between people. Health officials believe the initial exposure may have occurred on land in South America before the voyage began.
Editor’s note: This article is being updated as new information becomes available.