The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the first confirmed hantavirus case linked to the deadly outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship was infected before boarding the vessel.
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The polar expedition ship departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a voyage across the Atlantic to Cape Verde with about 150 passengers and crew.
According to the WHO, the first patient, a 70-year-old Dutch passenger, began showing symptoms, including fever, headache and mild diarrhoea, on April 6 before developing respiratory distress and dying on board on April 11.
Anais Legand, a WHO technical expert on viral haemorrhagic fevers, said the timeline showed the man “could not have been infected on the ship, or on one of the islands” visited during the voyage.
“The incubation period, the time between infection and the onset of symptoms, is between one and six weeks, but it is typically more like two to three weeks,” AFP quoted her as saying.
“The man very clearly had exposure before boarding the ship. For this virus, there is no evidence that the disease can be transmitted to someone before symptoms appear.”
She added that the exposure was “certainly linked to a rodent.”
Hantavirus is usually transmitted through contact with infected rodents, including exposure to their urine, droppings or saliva.
Human-to-human transmission has only been documented for the Andes virus strain, which health authorities detected in confirmed cases from the outbreak.
The WHO said the Dutch couple had travelled in South America, including Argentina, before boarding the cruise ship.
Two Argentine officials investigating the outbreak said authorities suspect the couple may have contracted the virus while bird-watching near a landfill in Ushuaia, where they may have been exposed to rodents.
Three people, the Dutch couple and a German national, have died in the outbreak.
Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said on X that as of May 6, eight cases had been identified, three of them laboratory-confirmed as hantavirus infections.
Swiss authorities have also confirmed a hantavirus case in a passenger from the ship who later sought treatment at a hospital in Zurich.
Meanwhile, two patients infected with hantavirus and one suspected case were evacuated on Wednesday from the cruise ship.
The vessel then departed Cape Verde and headed to Spain’s Canary Islands.
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