The World Health Organization said Sunday that the current hantavirus outbreak linked to a South Atlantic cruise ship remains under control for the moment, even as international health agencies continue monitoring the situation closely following multiple deaths tied to the virus.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that there have been 12 confirmed cases of hantavirus and three fatalities connected to the outbreak, with no additional confirmed deaths reported since May 2. Investigators believe the outbreak began in South America after infected passengers boarded the cruise ship MV Hondius earlier this month.
“All passengers and crew remain in quarantine and under close monitoring to ensure they receive care if needed,” Tedros wrote on the social platform X. “The situation is stable for now. We continue to remain vigilant and in close contact with all relevant governments.”
The latest update came shortly after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Friday that he had signed a targeted Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act declaration aimed at accelerating research and medical response efforts involving the Andes strain of hantavirus.
“This action helps remove barriers to research and response efforts while we continue monitoring the recent outbreak linked to the South Atlantic cruise ship,” Kennedy said in a statement posted to social media. “HHS is taking this situation seriously and will continue working to protect public health and support the safe development of potential treatments and countermeasures.”
Authorities in Argentina said a Dutch couple who later died had participated in a bird-watching excursion that included a stop at a garbage dump, where they may have come into contact with rats carrying the virus. A German tourist also contracted the Andes strain and died.
Argentinian officials said scientific teams would investigate how the outbreak began. The Associated Press previously reported that the MV Hondius departed Argentina on April 1.
Health officials in the United States quarantined 17 Americans and one British citizen in either Nebraska or Georgia after they were exposed to hantavirus aboard the ship. Most of those individuals have not developed symptoms. One person tested positive while remaining asymptomatic, while another experienced mild symptoms but tested negative.
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that there were no confirmed cases of the Andes strain inside the United States.
Public health authorities have repeatedly emphasized that the outbreak bears little resemblance to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, stressing that hantavirus spreads differently and has a different incubation period and transmission profile.
At the same time, another international health concern continues unfolding in Africa, where an outbreak of Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease has led to more than 500 suspected cases in Congo alone. In response, the WHO declared that outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
{Matzav.com}