CDC Classifies Hantavirus Outbreak as 'Level 3' Emergency Response Spanish authorities on Friday prepared to receive over 140 passengers and crew members from a cruise ship infected with hantavirus, which was en route to the Canary Islands. Health officials planned to evacuate passengers to a "completely isolated, cordoned-off area" on the Spanish island of Tenerife, where the ship was expected to arrive Sunday. The Dutch-flagged vessel, MV Hondius, had been linked to at least three deaths and five confirmed infections among passengers who had disembarked before the outbreak was identified. Cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions reported no symptomatic individuals remained on board as of Thursday. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated the risk to the general public from the outbreak was low, citing a negative test result for hantavirus in a flight attendant who had briefly boarded a plane after an infected passenger disembarked. Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesman, emphasized the outbreak was not comparable to the COVID-19 pandemic, noting the virus is primarily spread through rodent droppings and rarely transmissible between humans. However, the Andes virus strain detected in the outbreak may pose a rare risk of person-to-person transmission. Symptoms typically appear between one and eight weeks after exposure. Health authorities across four continents were tracking more than two dozen passengers who had left the ship before the outbreak was confirmed. The first confirmed case of hantavirus in a passenger was reported on May 2, nearly two weeks after the first death onboard. Dutch officials and the cruise operator revealed that over two dozen passengers from at least 12 countries had disembarked without contact tracing on April 24, raising concerns about potential spread.#world_health_organization #cdc #mv_hondius #oceanwide_expeditions #tristan_da_cunha
