Cruise ship passengers trace the origin of the hantavirus outbreak: ‘It’s being said here that it may have been the Dutch couple’

Initially, investigators looked for mice as the source of the infection, but this may have been the wrong lead. The hantavirus outbreak detected on the cruise ship MV Hondius has eight infected individuals. Three people have died, one remains in intensive care in Johannesburg, South Africa, and another one is in a hospital in Switzerland. Given that they had all shared spaces and activities, it was believed that it might be a case of group infection, through inhaling aerosols of rodent feces, urine, or saliva. This is the most common way to become infected with hantavirus. It is possible that they all entered the same enclosed area containing mouse droppings, and inhaled the same contaminated air.

But as more data emerges, this hypothesis has lost traction, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission from an initial infected individual is increasingly being considered. First, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Wednesday that the disease originated from the Andes Strain. This is the only variant of the virus that is spread not only from mice to humans but also from human to human. The chronology of infections appears to corroborate this hypothesis, according to medical sources. This theory is also supported by the account of events given to this newspaper by one of the ship’s passengers, who prefers to remain anonymous.

“It’s being said here that it may have been the Dutch couple,” this traveler explains in a phone conversation. “They were a couple who had been traveling through South America in their van for months. When the austral winter set in, they decided to park the van in Montevideo and fly to Ushuaia to board the ship.” It so happens that long-tailed mice, which spread the hantavirus, are found in the southern cone of South America, but they haven’t been detected in Tierra del Fuego, where the ship departed from. It’s too cold for them. Nor have any cases of hantavirus been recorded in its epidemiological history. The incubation period for the virus, until the first symptoms appear, ranges from one week to six weeks. “He started feeling unwell on the third or fourth day after departure,” the passenger explains. The expedition hadn’t stopped at any islands since setting sail (they wouldn’t until a few days later, when it made a stop at South Georgia). The man then isolated himself in his cabin with his wife. “They didn’t leave it,” said the passenger. “However, they did receive a visit from the doctor and the doctor’s assistant.” The man died on April 11. His body was stored in a refrigerated chamber.

“One of our passengers died last night,” the captain announced in a video released by one of the passengers. “The doctors have said it was not infectious. The ship is safe in that regard.” The passengers received the news with sadness, but also with a sense of calm. They continued participating in activities together and eating at the buffet restaurant.

The deceased man’s wife, the doctor, and his assistant contracted the virus. On April 22, the ship docked in Saint Helena, a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, nearly 2,000 kilometers off the coast of Angola. There, the deceased man’s body was carried off the ship, accompanied by his 69-year-old wife, who was to begin the repatriation process to the Netherlands, their country of origin. Another 23 passengers disembarked, ending their journey there and beginning their return home. She would not make it.

On April 25, the Dutch woman traveled by plane to South Africa with her husband’s body. The plan was to take a connecting flight to the Netherlands, but she began to feel worse during the flight and fainted at Johannesburg airport. She was taken to a medical center, where she died the following day.

The authorities informed the ship of the death, and the passengers were notified as well. But they, once again, dismissed it as unimportant. “People can always die, I thought of a romantic death, that she died of a broken heart…” explained the passenger, justifying his calm attitude by recalling that the woman had tested negative in all the tests she underwent. The passengers carried on with their lives.

But as they passed Ascension Island, they began to suspect something was wrong. “It’s a British island with the largest American base in the entire Atlantic. Right now, disembarking there is prohibited for military reasons,” the passenger explains. “But they told us they were going to disembark someone who wasn’t feeling well. He and his wife got off the ship on Ascension Island. And three days later, we received news that he was in Johannesburg, that he was stable, and that he had this virus. Until then, on the 25th, nobody knew there was a virus here on the ship.”

On April 28, an elderly German woman reported feeling unwell. She began developing pneumonia symptoms and her condition deteriorated rapidly. On May 2, she died. “She was an elderly woman, about 80 years old,” explains the source, adding that the victim was always in the company of another woman with whom she shared a cabin. This latter passenger is one of the three infected individuals who were recently evacuated from the ship. “She was completely asymptomatic.”

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