The risk of spreading the hantavirus to the world population is “absolutely low”, the World Health Organization (WHO) assured today following an outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius, on which three passengers died.
“This is a dangerous virus, but only for the person who is actually infected. The risk to the general population remains extremely low,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.
He said that even among people who were staying in the same cabins as an infected person on the MV Hondius cruise ship, “it appears that, in some cases, neither of them were infected.”
“It’s not like measles, for example: if you’re here in the press room and someone in the front is coughing, the front rows are at risk. Close contact means practically nose to nose (…) It’s not a new Covid,” he stressed.
The cruise ship Hondius, owned by Dutch cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions, departed from Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and is currently en route to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where it is expected on Sunday.
Three passengers on the ship died, while the latest WHO figures released on Thursday reported a total of five confirmed cases and three suspected cases.
