Cape Verde prepares to help virus-hit cruise ship, Canary Islands oppose docking

Cape Verde has set up an isolation area and a multidisciplinary team in case passengers or crew of the Hondius cruise ship need assistance, following three deaths on board associated with acute respiratory syndrome, the government announced.

On Ascension Island, a passenger was removed from the boat and transported to intensive care where he remains in South Africa with the only confirmed case of hantavirus.

“The hospital has already prepared an area with isolation capacity, should it be necessary, demonstrating our mobilisation and response capabilities,” said Cape Verde’s National Director of Health, Ângela Gomes.

“A dedicated team has been formed, with doctors, infectious disease specialists, nurses and laboratory technicians, to support patients on board and, if necessary, also on land,” she added.

The cruise ship, with nearly 150 people aboard, was waiting for help off the coast of Cape Verde in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday after three passengers died and at least three other people were left seriously ill in a suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus, according to the World Health Organization and the ship’s operator.

The MV Hondius, a Dutch ship on a weeks-long polar cruise from Argentina to Antarctica and several isolated islands in the South Atlantic, had requested help from local health authorities after making its way to the island of Cape Verde, off the West Africa coast.

But no one has been allowed to disembark, Netherlands-based operator Oceanwide Expeditions said.

Cape Verde’s Health Ministry said Monday that for now, it will not allow the ship to dock because of public health concerns and that it would stay in open waters close to shore.

Spain on Tuesday said it would receive the ship in the Canary Islands in “three to four days” but on Wednesday the islands’ regional governor, Fernando Clavijo, said he opposed the move, citing public health concerns.

“This decision is not based ​on any technical criteria, nor is ⁠there sufficient ⁠information to ⁠reassure the ​public or guarantee their safety,” Clavijo ​told radio ⁠station COPE.

Clavijo said he’s requested an urgent meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Cause unknown

Hantavirus is a rodent-borne illness spread by contact with rodents or their urine, saliva or droppings. WHO says that while it is rare, hantavirus may spread between people.

It was unclear how an outbreak could have started, and WHO said it was investigating while working to coordinate the evacuation of two sick crew members.

Another sick person — a British man evacuated to South Africa on 27 April — tested positive for the virus, authorities said. He is in critical condition and isolated in intensive care, health officials said.

The body of one of the passengers who died — a German — remains on the ship, according to an Oceanwide Expeditions statement. A 70-year-old Dutch man died onboard 11 April, and his 69-year-old wife died later in South Africa after leaving the ship, officials said. Her blood later tested positive for the virus, making two confirmed cases, South Africa’s health minister said.

Among the 87 remaining passengers, 17 are Americans, 19 are from the United Kingdom and 13 from Spain, according to Oceanwide Expeditions. Sixty-one crew members also are onboard.

Two sick crew members — one British, one Dutch — have respiratory symptoms and need urgent medical care, Oceanwide said in its statement.

Cape Verde has sent a medical team of two doctors, a nurse and a laboratory specialist to the ship over three trips, said a WHO official in Cape Verde.

First victims

The ship left Ushuaia in southern Argentina on 1 April, according to Argentine provincial authorities. Health officials there said they confirmed no passengers had hantavirus symptoms when the Hondius departed.

It has 80 cabins and a capacity of 170 passengers, and it typically travels with about 70 crew members, including a doctor, the company said.

The Dutch man was the first victim, and he presented with fever, headache, abdominal pain and diarrhea, officials said. His body was taken off the vessel nearly two weeks later on the British territory of Saint Helena, some 1,900 kilometers off the African coast and was awaiting repatriation.

His wife was transferred to South Africa; she collapsed at a Johannesburg airport and died at a hospital, the South African Department of Health said.

On Monday, South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told national broadcaster SABC that her blood was tested posthumously, with a positive hantavirus result.

The ship sailed on to Ascension Island, an isolated Atlantic outpost about 1,300 kilometers to the north, where the sick British man was taken off the ship and evacuated April 27 to South Africa.

Hantavirus has no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase chances of survival.