{"id":437103,"date":"2026-05-07T15:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/437103\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:20:09","slug":"who-does-not-anticipate-a-large-epidemic-as-five-cruise-ship-cases-confirmed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/437103\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO does not \u2018anticipate a large epidemic\u2019 as five cruise ship cases confirmed \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Countries worldwide are scrambling to trace people who had left the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus<\/a> outbreak before it got marooned off the coast of Cape Verde, to prevent \u200bfurther spread of the disease. <\/p>\n

Three people \u2013 a Dutch<\/a> couple and a German<\/a> national \u2013 died in the outbreak on the MV Hondius. Five of the eight suspected cases have now been confirmed, \u2060the World Health \u200cOrganisation<\/a> \u200c(WHO) said \u200bat a press briefing on \u2060Thursday.<\/p>\n

The \u200bwider public \u200bhealth threat from \u200cthe outbreak remained low, \u200bdirector general Tedros Adhanom \u2060Ghebreyesus<\/a> \u2060said, \u200badding that the WHO was aware of reports of other patients and there may \u200cbe \u2060more cases due to the long \u200cincubation period of the virus. <\/p>\n

Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, director at the alert and response co-ordination department of the WHO\u2019s emergencies health programme, highlighted a similar outbreak in Argentina in 2018\/19 which led to 34 cases.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIf we follow public health measures, and the lessons we learned from Argentina are shared across all countries … we can break this chain of transmission and this doesn\u2019t need to be a large epidemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahamud added: \u201cWe don\u2019t anticipate a large epidemic. With experience our member states have, and the actions they have taken, we believe that this will not lead to subsequent chain of transmission.\u201d<\/p>\n

The WHO is working with health authorities in South Africa to trace contacts of the two cases of hantavirus in the country, which includes one British person who is still in intensive care there.<\/p>\n

\"WHOWHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n

The Dutch government has said about 40 passengers had disembarked the ship in St Helena, where the ship made a stop on its way to \u200bCape Verde \u2013 before the outbreak was reported.<\/p>\n

The whereabouts of many of these passengers is as yet unknown.<\/p>\n

One of those to disembark was the wife of the Dutchman who had died aboard the \u2060ship on April 11th. She fell sick herself and died before she could reach the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Dutch airline KLM on Wednesday said it \u200chad \u200ctaken \u200bthe woman off a plane in Johannesburg on April 25th due to her deteriorating medical condition.<\/p>\n

According to broadcaster RTL, a KLM stewardess who had been in contact with her has now been admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam after showing possible \u2060symptoms of a hantavirus infection.<\/p>\n

The Dutch health ministry did not \u200bmention her job or who she may have been in contact with, but \u200bdid confirm that a Dutch woman has been admitted to hospital and will be tested to determine whether she is infected with the hantavirus.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for KLM said \u200cthe company could not \u201cdiscuss individual cases\u201d due to privacy concerns.<\/p>\n

The virus found in the victims has been confirmed as the Andean strain, which can spread among humans through very close contact.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0What is hantavirus, can it spread and what are the symptoms?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Experts \u2060have stressed that contagion is very rare and requires very close \u2060contact, but the outbreak has put \u200bhealth authorities on high alert. The United States\u2019 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was closely monitoring the situation with US travellers on board the ship, adding that the risk to the American public was extremely low at the time.<\/p>\n

One French citizen has been in contact with a person who had fallen ill but was not currently showing symptoms, French foreign minister Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot said.<\/p>\n

Argentina\u2019s health ministry has said it will carry out rodent trapping and analysis in the southern city of Ushuaia, the origin point of the cruise ship.<\/p>\n

Officials and experts in Argentina<\/a> are seeking to determine whether their country is the source of the deadly outbreak. Argentina, where the cruise to Antarctica departed, is consistently ranked by the WHO as having the highest incidence of the rare, rodent-borne disease in Latin America. Investigators there are working to contact trace the source of contamination.<\/p>\n

The Argentinian health ministry on Tuesday reported 101 hantavirus infections since June 2025, roughly double to the previous year.<\/p>\n

The Andes strain of the hantavirus can cause a severe and often fatal lung disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. The disease led to death in nearly a third of cases in the last year, Argentina\u2019s health ministry said.<\/p>\n

Argentina on Wednesday said it was sending genetic material from the Andes virus and testing equipment to help Spain, Senegal, South Africa, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom detect it.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Luxembourg Air Rescue plane landed in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Wednesday evening. Photograph: Luxembourg Air Rescue crew <\/p>\n

People usually become infected with hantavirus through contact with infected rodents or their urine, their droppings or their saliva, and human-to-human transmission is rare. But a limited spread among close contacts has been observed in some previous outbreaks with the Andes strain.<\/p>\n

Argentinian officials say they\u2019re trying to pin down where infected passengers travelled in the country before boarding the Dutch-flagged cruise liner in Ushuaia, a city in southern Argentina known as the end of the world. Once they know the itineraries, they plan to trace contacts, isolate close contacts and actively monitor to prevent further spread.<\/p>\n

Before boarding, the Dutch couple went sightseeing in Ushuaia, and travelled in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, the Argentinian government said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018He was deceased on the ship for several days\u2019: Irishwoman describes hantavirus outbreakOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The virus can incubate for between one and eight weeks, making it hard to know whether the passengers contracted the virus before leaving Argentina for Antarctica on April 1st; during a scheduled stop to a remote South Atlantic island; or on-board.<\/p>\n

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, said earlier on X that the \u201cWHO continues to work with the ship\u2019s operators to closely monitor the health of passengers and crew, working with countries to support appropriate medical follow-up and evacuation where needed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonitoring and follow-up for passengers on-board and for those who have already disembarked has been initiated in collaboration with the ship\u2019s operators and national health authorities,\u201d he added. \u201cAt this stage, the overall public health risk remains low.\u201d<\/p>\n

The evacuation of three passengers from the ship, with close to 150 people on-board, means it can now continue on its three-day journey to the Canary Islands after Spanish authorities gave permission for the vessel to dock. But a row has erupted, with the president of the Canary Islands expressing concern over the ship docking in Tenerife.<\/p>\n

The ship was anchored off Cape Verde while arrangements were put in place to evacuate the crew members but on Wednesday evening the ship was on its way to the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland \u2018well prepared\u2019 for any hantavirus cases, says infectious disease specialistOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Those evacuated on Wednesday include a British man, Martin Anstee (56), who was an expedition guide on-board the ship. He was removed from the vessel along with a Dutch colleague (41), who was the ship\u2019s doctor, and a 65-year-old German passenger, the Telegraph reported.<\/p>\n

The health emergency aboard the MV Hondius comes as local public health researchers in Argentina point to climate change<\/a> accelerating the risk of the spread of hantavirus.<\/p>\n

Public heath experts say higher temperatures expand the virus\u2019s range because, in part, as it gets warmer and ecosystems change, rodents that carry the hantavirus can thrive in more places. <\/p>\n

\u201cArgentina has become more tropical because of climate change, and that has brought disruptions, like dengue and yellow fever, but also new tropical plants that produce seeds for mice to proliferate,\u201d said Hugo Pizzi, a prominent Argentinian infectious disease specialist. \u201cThere is no doubt that as time goes by, the hantavirus is spreading more and more.\u201d \u2013 Guardian\/Associated Press\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Countries worldwide are scrambling to trace people who had left the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3858,2885,188479,103,61,60,5151,2846,141971,115,31614],"class_list":["post-437103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-argentina","tag-climate-change","tag-hantavirus","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-netherlands","tag-spain","tag-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus","tag-united-states","tag-world-health-organisation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}