Tenerife South Airport this Saturday was preparing for repatriation flights of the Hantavirus-hit cruise ship passengers who were on board the MD Hondius.
Health experts raced to contain a potential spread of hantavirus as two suspected cases emerged on Friday far from the luxury cruise liner where the outbreak started.
The latest reports involved a man who fell ill after leaving the ship and a woman who became sick after sitting near an infected cruise passenger on a plane.
The occurrences reported by health officials thousands of miles apart one in Spain, the other on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha are separate from the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) tally of eight people who became ill aboard the Dutch-flagged ship.
Three of those people have died. WHO officials said on Friday six of the eight suspected cases have been confirmed as hantavirus, a potentially fatal disease typically carried and spread by rodents.
Experts race to write guidance to contain first ship-borne hantavirus outbreak
As the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak sails towards Tenerife, WHO officials are racing to draw up step-by-step guidance for what should happen next for the nearly 150 passengers when they finally reach land on Sunday.
Half a dozen current and former WHO officials and hantavirus experts said the outbreak could be managed by adapting standard public health steps, like isolating sick passengers or those who may have been in contact with them.
None of the passengers on the ship now have symptoms, the ship’s operator has said.
–Reuters–
