Three people have died and a UK national is seriously ill in hospital after a suspected hantavirus outbreak on a small cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The operator of the MV Hondius ship, tour company Oceanwide Expeditions, said a Dutch husband and wife, as well as a German national, had died but the cause has not yet been established.
However, the Dutch company said hantavirus has been confirmed in the case of the 69-year-old UK national who is in intensive care in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Hantavirus is usually passed to humans from rodents via their faeces, saliva or urine. It can cause severe respiratory illness. Rarely, it can be transmitted between people.
The MV Hondius vessel is currently off the coast of Cape Verde and has 149 people onboard.
Oceanwide Expeditions said there were also two crew members on board “with acute respiratory symptoms, one mild and one severe”.
They were of British and Dutch nationality and both required urgent medical care, it said. It said it had not been established that hantavirus had been confirmed in the pair. And it added that no other persons with symptoms had been identified.
Negotiations are in progress with local authorities following what Oceanwide Expeditions described as “a serious medical situation”.
