According to World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the hantavirus situation is “stable for now.”

“So far, 12 cases and three deaths have been reported to @WHO. No additional deaths have been reported since May 2,” Ghebreyesus said.

“All passengers and crew remain in quarantine and under close monitoring to ensure they receive care if needed. The situation is stable for now. We continue to remain vigilant and in close contact with all relevant governments,” he added.

More from The Independent:

The strain of virus that spread on the ship is the Andes virus, the only known hantavirus strain to pass between humans.

After all Americans were returned to the U.S., Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said that he had signed a declaration to “support the development and deployment of medical countermeasures related to Andes virus.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“This action helps remove barriers to research and response efforts while we continue monitoring the recent outbreak linked to the South Atlantic cruise ship,” he wrote in his own X post.

In the meantime, risk to the general public remains low, Dr. David Fitter, the incident manager for response to the virus at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news briefing last week.

“There are no hantavirus cases among the returned to U.S. passengers,” he said.

Ghebreyesus said on Friday that there were “no new deaths in 20 days.”

“The #Netherlands reported one additional case — a crew member who left the ship in Tenerife, was repatriated, and has been isolating since,” he continued.

“The situation is stabilising. @WHO is actively monitoring all quarantined passengers and crew alongside national governments. Surveillance will continue until the incubation period ends for everyone who was on board,” he added.

The Hill shared further:

Argentina’s Ministry of Health said a Dutch couple took part in a bird-watching tour that stopped at a garbage dump and they may have been exposed to infected rats. The couple, along with a German national, contracted the Andes strain and died.

Argentinian health officials said a team of scientific experts would be dispatched to investigate the origin of the outbreak, as the MV Hondius departed the country on April 1, the Associated Press previously reported.

Seventeen Americans and one British national exposed to hantavirus on the cruise ship were quarantined either in Nebraska or Georgia while health officials monitored them for symptoms. Most have not shown symptoms of hantavirus, though one person tested positive without being symptomatic, while another had mild symptoms but did not test positive.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said earlier this month that there were no cases of the Andes strain in the U.S.

Health officials regularly assured that the outbreak did not resemble the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and emphasized the differences between both viruses when it came to close-contact infection and the incubation period.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.