Two suspected cases of hantavirus were reported on Friday, with one in Spain and the other on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, according to officials.
A Spanish woman who was on the same flight as a passenger who died of hantavirus is currently being treated at a hospital for a suspected infection, local officials said Friday.
The Spanish Health Ministry said in a Friday briefing that a 32-year-old woman was being treated in the city of Alicante.
The woman was “sitting two rows behind the person who died from hantavirus, a person who tested positive, having had only brief contact as they were on board the plane for a short time,” said Secretary of State for Health Javier Padilla.
Padilla noted that others on the flight have developed potential symptoms but later tested negative, including a Dutch flight attendant.
“This is what happened with the flight attendant on the KLM flight, and we are confident that the same will happen here,” he said during the news conference.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that the Dutch KLM flight attendant had been admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam on Thursday with signs of a possible infection but had tested negative.
The infected woman travelled from St. Helena to Johannesburg on a commercial flight and was trying to take another flight home when she fell seriously ill at O.R. Tambo International Airport. She died at a nearby hospital on April 26. She was one of dozens of cruise ship passengers who disembarked at St. Helena.
The woman’s 70-year-old husband was the first passenger to die on board the MV Hondius on April 11.
In a second case, a British government official said that a person with a suspected case of hantavirus on the island of Tristan da Cunha is a resident who was hospitalized.
Stephen Doughty, the U.K. minister of overseas territories, confirmed the news in a statement shared on Tristan da Cunha’s official website, writing, “I wanted to reach out personally and say I am very sorry to hear that Tristan has been affected by the health situation concerning the MV Hondius cruise ship.”
“My thoughts are with the islander currently in hospital and their spouse who is isolating. I also understand you [Tristan da Cunha] have four islanders currently on St Helena that travelled on the ship,” he continued.
Doughty said that he is “personally tracking events” and will make sure to share “urgent advice and appropriate support as a priority.”
On Thursday, the WHO said there have been five confirmed cases of the virus and three suspected cases as health officials continue to seek and monitor passengers who left the MV Hondius along its voyage.
Hantavirus usually spreads by inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and, in rare cases, can be transmitted from person to person, according to the WHO. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
There is no specific treatment or cure for hantavirus, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival.
WHO working on guidance to contain hantavirus outbreak
World Health Organization officials are developing step-by-step operational guidance for the safe disembarkation and onward travel of passengers and crew once they reach land on Sunday.
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Half a dozen current and former WHO officials and hantavirus experts said the outbreak could be managed by adapting standard public health steps, such as isolating sick passengers or those who may have been in contact with them.
The WHO has arranged for the shipment of 2,500 diagnostic kits from Argentina to laboratories in five countries to strengthen testing capacity.
Officials are seeking tips from Argentina, where a previous outbreak of the Andes virus was snuffed out in 2019.
“If we follow public health measures and the lessons we learned from Argentina … we can break this chain of transmission. This doesn’t need to be a large epidemic,” Abdi Rahman Mahamud, director of the WHO’s alert and response co-ordination department, said.
The WHO may also recommend that some people with links to the outbreak take their temperature daily for at least 42 days, as the Andes strain has a long incubation period, Anais Legand, WHO technical officer for viral threats, said at an online briefing on Friday.
“Based on the dynamics of this outbreak, based on how it is spreading and not spreading amongst the people on the ship, the people who have disembarked, as well, we continue to consider the risk as low for the general population,” Legand said during the briefing.
National authorities may also be asked to set up regular contact with those people, and give them a phone number to call if they feel at all unwell, she added.
Passengers are being split into high-risk and low-risk contacts based on their interactions with sick travellers, the WHO said. Contact tracing is also key for anyone who has already left the ship.
