The Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, said 97 contacts in South Africa are linked to the hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius. Previously, the country identified 62 people who had been in contact with two positive cases: a Dutch woman who died and a British passenger being treated in Johannesburg.
A US passenger from the cruise ship MV Hondius, affected by a hantavirus outbreak, is instructed by personnel after disembarking a boat at the port of Granadilla de Abona, in Tenerife, Spain. Image credit: Reuters/Hannah McKay
The Department of Health and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) are collaborating with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to trace local cases.
“We are concerned about contacts, whether it’s from the plane, from the ambulance or health workers,” Motsoaledi said to SABC News.
“They are all equally contacts. So far, we’ve identified 97 contacts, 90 of whom have been reached already and advised, and they are being watched.”
The minister added that of the 90 identified and informed contacts, four are in the Western Cape, while 86 are in Gauteng.
The identified contacts will be monitored for six weeks, in accordance with the WHO’s recommended 42-day quarantine.
Reuters reports that the WHO has confirmed seven cases of the Andes strain of hantavirus and two other suspected cases — one who died before being tested and another on Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island where no tests were available.
Corina Pons and Victoria Waldersee 21 hours Public risk remains low
Health officials say that because the virus does not spread easily between people, there is little risk to the general public, urging calm to a public scarred by the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The MV Hondius had been carrying 147 passengers and crew from 23 countries when a cluster of severe respiratory illnesses among passengers was first reported to the WHO on 2 May.
By then, 34 other passengers had disembarked on islands in the Atlantic before the cruise ship headed north to Cape Verde, where news of the outbreak emerged.
Health officials in Johannesburg first detected the virus when treating a British man who had disembarked the ship. That was some three weeks after the first passenger, a Dutchman, had died.
The luxury cruise ship departed for the Canary Islands on 6 May after Madrid accepted a WHO request to manage its evacuation.
"People should also put their minds at rest that the situation is under control," Gianfranco Spiteri, emergencies lead at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, told Reuters.
"We know the virus. We can prevent further onward transmission. We're not expecting a new pandemic from this," he said.
