It was already too late for many of the passengers who had already flown away to various locations around the world when news got out about health issues. That makes this cruise outbreak much more complicated than what people originally thought would happen.
On April 23, 2021, 23 passengers disembarked from the MV Hondius onto St. Helena Island, an island in the South Atlantic. Most of these travelers were probably unaware that they were part of what would be a potential hantavirus outbreak. They are now back in their respective countries – AU, US, TW, UK, CH and NL. However, many of the passengers did not discover until a few days after returning home about their possible exposure to the virus.
This delay has raised a lot of concern because the incubation period for the hantavirus can take anywhere from a few days to many weeks before the symptoms show up.
Switzerland has become a center of attention due to a passenger that returned home testing positive. The confusing part about this was that the passenger’s earlier testing at the Zurich hospital was negative.
The type of long incubation period virus is exactly what has health experts concerned about infectious agents that are capable of long term host infection, and of traveling normally whilst still infected.
Investigators’ initial theory is that this couple may have visited or passed through an area that was proximate/proximal to some waste disposal site that harbored an infected rodent. Since common sources of hantavirus infection are from exposure to rat/mouse saliva, urine, or droppings, this may have been how it was transmitted.
However, investigators are being cautious about drawing any conclusions quickly, because historically, Tierra del Fuego has not had a lot of history/does not have much of a history of having hantavirus outbreaks.
Lastly, what is drawing attention to this story from a global perspective is that some experts believe that the virus involved may actually be an Andes hantavirus strain. This unique strain has the potential to spread between humans under certain circumstances as opposed to most hantaviruses.
Experts say that the way this virus spreads from person to person is very different from the way that COVID-19 spreads, and they agree that the majority of the time, viruses are transferred between individuals through prolonged physical contact with one another for example, through hugging someone for a long time in a small space or sitting down for a meal with them in a small space.
On cruise ships, however, the conditions created allow for extended periods of time where people are in close contact in an enclosed area. People on vacation take meals together, stay in cabins, hang out in lounges, engage in activities together, etc. The cruise (in other words, close quarters for a long period of time) creates a much higher risk of spreading the virus.
The timeline for the outbreak of the virus on this ship is particularly alarming. According to reports, one of the passengers likely showed symptoms of the virus on April 6, yet they didn’t die until April 11 – approximately two weeks after the 23 others had already disembarked from the ship.
Because of the time frame, there is a lot of concern regarding whether or not the cruise company contacted individuals for contact tracing and/or notifying of possible exposure to passengers from previous cruisers on the ship quick enough. Some individuals do not find out about the virus exposure until well after they returned from vacation.
With the travelling public currently dispersed over multiple countrys worldwide, coordination among health agencies has become much more difficult.
When infectious diseases start to spread on cruise ships, they can develop silently before alerting the world to the fact that there is a problem. By the time any alert is made, passengers are already returning to their country of origin, making it difficult to track how far the problem has spread.
What was once a remote expedition has now become an international public health issue that extends well beyond the route the ship has taken to get there.
