Two Britons evacuated from hantavirus-hit ship ‘improving’ in hospital | Hantavirus

Two Britons who were medically evacuated from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship are doing better, global health officials said.

A British passenger, believed to be aged 69, was taken to South Africa on April 27 and is receiving treatment at a private health facility in Sandton, Johannesburg.

Another Briton, Martin Anstee, 56, an expedition guide, was disembarked from the MV Hondius on Wednesday and flown to the Netherlands to receive specialist medical treatment.

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, from the World Health Organization (WHO), said two patients – including a Briton – were still hospitalized in the Netherlands and another Briton was in intensive care in South Africa.

She told a WHO press briefing: “I’m very happy to say that the patient in South Africa is getting better and the two patients in the Netherlands that we’re hearing about are stable. So that’s actually very good news.”

As of Thursday, there were eight suspected cases, including five confirmed by laboratory tests to be hantaviruses, a rare family of viruses carried by rodents.

The outbreak, linked to three deaths, is linked to a bird-watching trip to Argentina, Chile and Uruguay taken by two of the passengers before boarding the ship.

Spanish authorities allowed the ship to anchor in the Canary Islands, despite concerns from locals and authorities, and the boat left the coast of Cape Verde at 3:15 p.m. local time on Wednesday, tour operator Oceanwide Expeditions said.

It is expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife in the early hours of Sunday.

Morale on board has improved since the ship began its journey to Tenerife, the WHO said. Two doctors are on board as well as infectious disease experts from the WHO and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, who are carrying out a medical assessment of everyone on board.

Although the risk to the public is low, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said there could be more cases due to the incubation period of the Andes virus – the hantavirus variant linked to the outbreak – which can be up to six weeks.

He said: “Although this is a serious incident, WHO considers the risk to public health to be low. ” He thanked the ship’s operator for its cooperation, as well as the passengers and crew, “who are going through a very difficult and frightening situation.”

The WHO does not expect the outbreak to be an epidemic, according to Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud, director of the alert and response coordination department. He pointed to a similar outbreak in Argentina in 2018-2019, which resulted in 34 cases.

Seven Britons were among 30 people from 12 countries who left the ship when it docked on the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena, including a Dutch woman who fell ill during the voyage and died. The woman accompanied her husband’s body, which was being repatriated after his death on the ship on April 11.

On Thursday, a woman in Amsterdam, believed to be a flight attendant who came into contact with the deceased woman, showed possible symptoms.

Oceanwide Expeditions said guests who had disembarked had been contacted.

The UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) was asked if it could confirm it was in contact with the seven Britons who left the ship on April 24.

He previously announced that two Britons who had already returned from the ship were isolating at home and showing no symptoms. Contact tracing is underway for anyone who may have sat next to them on the return flight. Both people contacted health authorities when they heard about the cases on the ship.

Nineteen British nationals were on the passenger list of the MV Hondius, which was sailing from Argentina to Cape Verde, with four British crew members.

British health experts have said British passengers on board will be asked to self-isolate in the UK for 45 days. Professor Robin May, UKHSA’s chief scientific officer, said: “For the general public, who are not directly involved with this cruise ship, the risk here is really negligible. »

The Foreign Office is arranging a charter flight so that the remaining Britons on the ship who do not have symptoms can be repatriated once they arrive in Tenerife in the coming days.

According to the UKHSA, none of the British citizens on board are reporting symptoms, but they are being closely monitored.

May said the “most extreme incubation case” of hantavirus “could last up to eight weeks”, but the general consensus was that people should isolate for “probably six weeks, and so that is the period of isolation, 45 days, that we are likely to recommend”.

Three people were evacuated from the ship on Wednesday to the Netherlands for treatment, including Anstee, an expedition guide and former police officer. Speaking from hospital, he told Sky News: “I’m fine. I don’t feel too bad. There’s still a lot of tests to do.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be in the hospital. I’m in isolation at the moment.”