More than 20 Britons are stuck on a luxury cruise ship in South Africa which is not allowed to dock due to a suspected hantavirus outbreak onboard.
Almost 150 people, 19 of whom are British passengers and four British crew members, are currently on board the Dutch-flagged vessel MV Hondius which was sailing from Argentina to Cape Verde on a trip organised by tour company Oceanwide Expeditions.
Three people have died and at least three others are ill, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said, as an investigation has been launched. The UN’s agency said that at least one case of hantavirus had been confirmed on Monday.
A Dutch couple and a German national have been confirmed dead, while one British tourist, 69, remains in intensive care in a critical but stable condition, the tour company said in a statement. They were medically evacuated to South Africa last week.
MV Hondius has been unable to dock at Cape Verde since the incident as authorities highlighted the “aim of protecting national public health”.
Medics were working on Monday to evacuate two crew members with acute respiratory symptoms, one mild and one severe, of British and Dutch nationality. No other people with symptoms have been identified, Oceanwide Expeditions said.
Hantavirus has not currently been confirmed in the two people still on board who require medical care, nor has it been established that the virus is connected to the three deaths associated with the voyage, the tour operator said.
The ship travelled past mainland Antarctica, the Falklands, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan, St Helena, and Ascension before reaching Cape Verdean waters on Sunday. Tracking on Marine Traffic showed that the ship was anchored just off the coast of Praia, Cape Verde’s capital.
Oceanwide Expeditions said they were considering options of sailing on to Las Palmas or Tenerife for future medical screening or handling.
The cruise’s operator said the disembarkation of passengers, medical evacuation and medical screening require permission from, and co-ordination with, the local health authorities, who have “visited the vessel and assessed the situation”.
Those onboard remain under strict precautionary measures including isolation, hygiene protocols and medical monitoring.
Jake Rosmarin, a US travel blogger on the ship, said in a tearful Instagram video post from the ship that the uncertainty was hard to bear.
“We’re not just headlines: we’re people with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home,” he said. “There is a lot of uncertainty and that is the hardest part.”
The WHO has said the risk to the wider public was low from hantavirus, a disease that is typically spread when droppings and urine of rodents become airborne, and does not easily transfer between humans. A spokesperson for the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health (RIVM), said the source of the infection is not yet clear.
“You could imagine, for example, that rats on board the ship transmitted the virus,” he said.
“But another possibility is that during a stop somewhere in South America, people were infected, for instance via mice, and became ill that way. That all still needs to be investigated.”
Oceanwide Expeditions said it is in close contact with those directly involved and their families, and was providing support where possible.
