WHO Chief Says Hantavirus Poses Low Contagion Risk to General Public

(MENAFN) World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has personally traveled to Spain's Tenerife to oversee the docking of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius, reassuring local residents that the outbreak poses a low contagion risk to the general public.

The Dutch-flagged vessel, carrying 147 passengers and crew from 23 countries, has been at the center of an international health emergency after an outbreak of the Andes strain of hantavirus — a rare and potentially lethal pathogen typically transmitted through contact with infected rodent droppings, urine, or saliva. Unlike most variants, the Andes strain is capable of limited human-to-human transmission through close contact, and no known cure currently exists, leaving symptomatic treatment as the only available option.

The ship departed Argentina bound for Cape Verde on April 1. The first casualty, a 70-year-old Dutch man, began showing symptoms on April 6 and died five days later. His 69-year-old wife, who accompanied his remains to South Africa, subsequently died at a Johannesburg hospital on April 26. A third passenger, a German woman, succumbed to the illness on May 2. The WHO has reported a total of eight cases linked to the vessel — six confirmed and two suspected — including the three fatalities. Authorities are also racing to trace more than two dozen individuals who disembarked before the outbreak was officially confirmed.

Despite the vessel being branded a "plague ship" by some media outlets, Ghebreyesus moved swiftly to temper public alarm, drawing a firm distinction between the current outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The risk to you, living your daily life in Tenerife, is low. This is the WHO's assessment, and we do not make it lightly," he wrote in a letter published Saturday, adding that hantavirus, while "serious,... is not another COVID."

He confirmed that there are currently "no symptomatic passengers on board" the MV Hondius, with a WHO expert stationed on the ship actively monitoring the situation.

Passengers will be brought ashore under strict containment protocols. According to Ghebreyesus, they "will be ferried ashore at the industrial port of Granadilla, far from residential areas, in sealed, guarded vehicles, through a completely cordoned-off corridor, and repatriated directly to their home countries."

Ghebreyesus delivered a brief public reassurance alongside Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia upon his arrival on the island, underscoring the WHO's hands-on commitment to managing the unfolding situation.

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