Two new suspected cases of hantavirus were reported on Friday, one in Spain and the other on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, as experts try to contain an outbreak that started on a luxury cruise ship.
The announcements in locations thousands of miles apart will fuel concerns about the spread of the virus linked to three deaths so far, according to the Reuters news agency – although the World Health Organization has repeatedly said the risk to the wider public is low and the virus is not easily transmitted.
Spanish health officials said a 32-year-old woman in the southeastern Spanish province of Alicante has symptoms of hantavirus infection and is being tested.
Health Secretary of State Javier Padilla told reporters that she was sitting on the plane briefly behind a Dutch woman infected with the virus on the MV Hondius.
The Dutch woman left the flight in Johannesburg feeling ill before takeoff on April 25 and later died in hospital.
The UK Health Protection Agency said a British man on Tristan da Cunha was also suspected of having the disease. Authorities there said he was a passenger on a Dutch-flagged ship that stopped at the island from April 13 to 15.
“Based on the dynamics of this outbreak, how it is spreading and whether it is spreading among people who were on board, not among people who have disembarked, we consider the risk to the general population to be low,” Anais Legrand, WHO’s technical officer for viral threats, said in an online briefing.
Both new suspected cases are related to the original cluster of cases, officials said.
First ship-borne cluster of cases
The cruise left Argentina in March with about 150 passengers and stopped in the Antarctic and other locations before heading north to Cape Verde waters, where it was briefly halted this week after cases were reported.
WHO officials have confirmed that some of the cases on the ship were caused by the Andes strain of hantavirus, the only variant that can spread between people, usually through prolonged and close contact with a person showing symptoms. – Reuters
