Hantavirus Outbreak Risk To Public 'Absolutely Low': WHO

The World Health Organization said 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 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.

Lindmeier highlighted the confirmation Friday that a Dutch flight attendant who reportedly came in close contact with a sickened cruise ship passenger who later died had tested negative for the virus.

KLM said on Wednesday that the passenger -- the wife of the first person to die in the hantavirus outbreak on the Hondius -- had briefly been on a plane bound from Johannesburg to the Netherlands on April 25, but was removed before take-off.

The Dutch woman died on April 26 in a Johannesburg hospital and later tested positive for hantavirus.

The flight attendant "was in close contact, apparently, with that woman who then later collapsed and died in Johannesburg, yet she's... not infected with the hantavirus," Lindmeier said, hailing the "very good news".

He also pointed to the case of a Swiss man in hospital in Zurich with hantavirus, whose wife had travelled on the cruise with him, yet had "not presented any symptoms and is self-isolating".

"That shows you again, luckily, that apparently the virus is not that contagious that it easily jumps from person to person," he said.

This was also promising for inhabitants of islands where the cruise had stopped along its route, including the remote British island of Saint Helena, where 30 passengers, including the body of the first person to die in the outbreak, disembarked on April 24.

"For the general population on an island... it's an absolutely minimal risk," he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed)