Two new suspected cases of hantavirus were reported on Friday, one in Spain and the other on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, as experts race to contain an outbreak that began on a luxury cruise ship.
The announcements in locations thousands of kilometres (miles) apart will fuel concern about a cluster of cases so far associated with three deaths – though the World Health Organization has repeatedly said the risk to the wider public is low and the virus does not transmit easily.
A 32-year-old woman in the southeastern Spanish province of Alicante has symptoms consistent with a hantavirus infection and is being tested, Spanish health authorities said.
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She was briefly sitting on a plane behind a Dutch woman who had contracted the virus on the MV Hondius, Secretary of State for Health Javier Padilla told reporters. That Dutch woman left the flight in Johannesburg feeling ill before it took off on April 25 and later died in hospital.
A British man was also suspected of having the disease on Tristan da Cunha, the UK Health Security Agency said. Officials there said he was a passenger on the Dutch-flagged ship which made a stop on the island on April 13 to 15.
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Hantavirus-hit ship sails for Canary Islands as 3 people evacuated for medical treatment
Hantavirus-hit ship sails for Canary Islands as 3 people evacuated for medical treatment
“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,” Anais Legand, WHO technical officer for viral threats, said in an online briefing.