Spain to Welcome Hantavirus-Stricken Cruise Ship After 3 Deaths Off Cape Verde

Spain has agreed to welcome the MV Hondius cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak that has killed three people aboard or shortly after leaving, the World Health Organization said.

The ship carrying nearly 150 passengers and crew had sought assistance off Cape Verde after the African island nation refused docking over public health concerns. Two deaths occurred on board, and a third followed disembarkation.

Four other cases are suspected or confirmed, including a British national evacuated April 27 and now in critical condition in intensive care in South Africa. The WHO suspects human-to-human transmission on the ship and has started contact tracing for passengers on a flight shared with a 69-year-old Dutch woman.

That woman, whose husband died on board two weeks earlier, left the ship April 24 with gastrointestinal symptoms. Her condition worsened during a flight to Johannesburg, where she died two days later. Her blood later tested positive for hantavirus, South Africa's health minister said.

On Tuesday, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's director for epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, told journalists that Spanish authorities have offered to take the ship for a full epidemiologic investigation, disinfection and risk assessment of those on board.

The current plan calls for evacuating two sick passengers to the Netherlands, followed by the ship heading to Spain's Canary Islands. The Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions operates the MV Hondius, which left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a polar cruise to Antarctica and South Atlantic islands.

A 70-year-old Dutch man died on board April 11. The body of a German passenger who died remains on the ship. Among the 87 remaining passengers, 17 are Americans, 19 from the U.K. and 13 from Spain. Sixty-one crew members are also aboard.

Cape Verde's Health Ministry kept the ship in open waters near shore. The nation sent a medical team of two doctors, a nurse and a laboratory specialist on three trips. WHO official Ann Lindstrand in Cape Verde said authorities were planning medical evacuations by ambulance to an airport.

"It's been very tricky for Cape Verdean authorities," Lindstrand told the Associated Press. "What they have to deal with is a public health event. And of course, they have been thinking about the protection of the population here."

Hantavirus spreads through contact with rodents or their urine, saliva or droppings. The WHO said human transmission is rare but possible, with a mortality rate up to 50 percent in humans. The outbreak's origin is unclear.

Argentine officials in Ushuaia confirmed no symptoms among passengers at departure. Symptoms can appear up to eight weeks after exposure, said Juan Facundo Petrina, epidemiology director for Tierra del Fuego province. "The passengers could have been incubating the disease if they acquired it within the country or elsewhere in the world."

Argentina reported 28 hantavirus deaths nationwide last year. The WHO is coordinating with authorities on evacuations, laboratory testing, epidemiologic investigations and medical support. Lindstrand noted a possible new mild fever case under assessment.