The World Health Organization (WHO) said today that it considers “high-risk contacts” to be monitored for 42 days all persons on board the cruise ship Hondius on which an outbreak of hantavirus occurred.
“We are classifying all persons on board the ship as what we call high-risk contacts,” explained Maria Van Kerkow, WHO director responsible for epidemic and pandemic prevention and preparedness, on social media.
She added that “active surveillance and monitoring of all passengers and crew members disembarking for a period of 42 days” was recommended.
In addition, a dozen British passengers on the Hondius will be transferred tomorrow, Sunday, to a hospital near Liverpool, England, for a “period of isolation”, the NHS, the British public health system, told Agence France-Presse.
The people will be transferred to Arrowe Park Hospital in Upton “to be provided with a safe place for their period of isolation,” local NHS officials said in a letter sent to their employees.
“We will welcome these people on Sunday 10 May. On their arrival, symptoms will be detected and no person showing symptoms (of Hantavirus) will be admitted,” the letter said.
If any of these former ship passengers fall ill after arrival, “they will be quickly transferred to another institution,”
In a statement, regional health officials clarified that the passengers’ stay is expected to last “up to 72 hours.”
A decision will then be made “whether they can continue their isolation period at their residence or elsewhere.”
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) had announced yesterday, Friday, that Britons removed from the cruise ship Hondius would be isolated for 45 days after returning to the UK.
The Arrow Park Hospital had served as an isolation site for British nationals removed from Wuhan, China, and the cruise ship Diamond Princess in 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
