GENEVA: The World Health Organisation said on Friday the risk to the public of a deadly hantavirus strain in a cruise ship outbreak was minimal, as it spreads only through “very close contact”.
An outbreak on the MV Hondius, which is heading to the Spanish island of Tenerife, has sparked international concern.
Three passengers from the ship have died, with the WHO saying on Thursday there were five confirmed and three suspected cases in total.
“This is a dangerous virus, but only to the person who´s really infected, and the risk to the general population remains absolutely low,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva.
He said that even people who had stayed in the same cabin as an infected person on the MV Hondius “don´t seem to be both infected in some cases”.
“This is not a new Covid... It´s not anything close to measles,” he said, insisting that with hantavirus, it did not appear to be enough to be relatively near someone coughing to get infected. “You have to be basically in your face... If you share saliva, (and) spitting would also be a problem,” he said.
The ship left Ushuaia on the southern tip of Argentina on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde, stopping at several remote islands along the way.
People fearing or known to have contracted the virus are being treated or isolating in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and South Africa.
