The captain of the ship affected by the hantavirus outbreak will finally be able to leave the ship
The captain of the cruise ship MV Hondius, on board of which an outbreak of hantavirus was detected, will finally be able to leave the ship during the day on Saturday, announced the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, informs AFP, according to Agerpres.
Departing Ushuaia, a city in Argentina, on April 1, the cruise ship MV Hondius ended its voyage on May 18 in the Dutch port of Rotterdam after a stopover in the waters of Spain's Canary Archipelago, where more than 120 people were evacuated.
“We have just received the latest message from Captain Jan Dobrogowski, who is finally leaving the cruise ship MV Hondius today (Saturday). He is still showing no symptoms of hantavirus,” the WHO director said in a message shared on the X social network.
“I am deeply grateful to Jan for his cooperation and leadership as he steered the ship through an extraordinary and frightening journey. Thank you, dear Jan, for bringing the passengers safely to shore,” he added.
WHO has recorded a total of 12 suspected and confirmed hantavirus cases, including three deaths, since May 2, when the outbreak was first reported.
A crew member, who was disembarked in Tenerife and then repatriated to the Netherlands, was confirmed on Friday as a new case of hantavirus infection. He was hospitalized as a precaution.
In a press conference on Friday, the WHO director said that more than 600 people representing contact cases continue to be monitored in 30 countries, while “a small number of high-risk contact cases” still remain untraceable.
Hantavirus is a rare virus for which there is currently no vaccine or specific treatment. According to the WHO, human contagion requires very close contact.
But the Andes virus, the only hantavirus that is transmissible between humans, has an incubation period of several weeks, which means that other cases of infection could arise in the future among passengers on the MV Hondius, the WHO warned.
