Race to trace passengers who left hantavirus cruise ship at island — BBC News

[0:00] health officials from multiple countries including the uk are scrambling to trace [0:04] passengers who left a cruise liner before the deadly hunter virus outbreak was confirmed [0:09] singapore is now isolating and testing two people who are on the ship hunter virus typically spreads [0:14] from rodents but it's thought that in this case it may have passed between humans that were in [0:18] close contact about 150 people are still on board the liner the envy hundias left argentina on the [0:25] first of april ten days later on the 11th of april the first passenger died a dutch man who is [0:31] suspected to have had the virus the cruise ship continued on to the remote south atlantic island [0:37] of saint helena where the wife of that man disembarked with his body she then traveled to [0:42] south africa where she later died and we now know that 30 passengers in total left the ship who also [0:48] disembarked in saint helena seven are british six are from the us three from the netherlands two from [0:54] canada switzerland and turkey and one case each from germany denmark new zealand singapore sweden [1:00] and the caribbean island of saint kitts and nevis we already know about two british people as well [1:07] who are self-isolating at home and flew back to the uk now neither had symptoms but contacted [1:13] authorities when they heard about the ship's cases and the cruise ship has then continued its trip [1:18] dropping anchor off the coast of cape verd on the third of may we can show you the current position of [1:23] the liner the remaining passengers and crew are now sailing to the canary islands where they could [1:28] be allowed to disembark on saturday if they don't appear to have symptoms guy hedgco is our correspondent [1:35] in the canaries in tenerife and he says it's still unclear as to how and where some passengers will be [1:40] quarantined once they reach the islands well it's still unclear exactly when the uh the ship will arrive [1:48] we're told it would take for three to four days it could be either saturday or possibly sunday [1:54] according to some reports so that's still unclear i think we might depend a bit on the weather [1:58] during the the journey but we do know that there are members of staff from the world health [2:04] organization on board along with infectious disease experts who are carrying out assessments of the [2:10] passengers as they travel when they do arrive here at the weekend they will be assessed again and we're [2:18] told that there will be no contact between the passengers from the boat and local people here [2:26] that they will be assessed and then a decision will be made in terms of whether they can be [2:31] immediately repatriated to their countries remember these are passengers from 23 different countries [2:38] on board the ship or whether they have to stay and undergo some kind of treatment there are 14 [2:44] spaniards on board we're told that they will be taken to a hospital in madrid there's some slightly [2:52] confusing information in terms of how they will be handled because one ministry has talked about them [2:58] undergoing a voluntary quarantine another ministry said it would be an obligatory quarantine for those [3:05] spaniards when they arrive but i think we'll hear more about the details in terms of exactly [3:09] how this situation will be handled nearer the time either on saturday or sunday thomas hoffman is the head of emergency [3:17] preparedness and response at the european center for disease prevention and control joining us now from stockholm thomas very good to have you with us [3:26] we are told that this is a rare event but that the risk to the public is low even negligible so i wonder at the moment what are your concerns [3:34] your concerns yeah our concerns are mainly right now to really get procedures in place for the safe [3:43] disembarkation of the passengers we're working intensively now with the effective member states [3:49] with partners with the world health organization to set up procedures which pursue people for this [3:54] situation is there an issue around the long incubation period of this virus does that complicate surely it [4:03] does all of the tracing contact tracing that's taking place surely it does um although there's still [4:10] with we know from from the science that most um in most cases incubation period still is around three [4:17] weeks so of course um i think anyone needs to stay with children afterwards um but i think we still have [4:24] the maturity of cases uh having a clearly defined incubation period but is there a concern that this can be [4:32] spread that there can be an airborne spread of this no this um strain of hunter virus cannot spread airborne [4:43] i mean it's not a respiratory disease like we know covet or or influenza um also it can i mean it's very [4:51] rare at all that it transmits from human to human hunter rise normally only transmits from rodent infected [4:57] rodents to humans but in this situation yes human to human transmission occurred um as people had [5:04] close contacts on sailing five weeks on a cruise ship thomas we're seeing pictures of some people [5:12] being taken off the ship and everyone there is wearing what looks like some kind of hamza suit or you [5:18] know protective gear what is it that needs to happen to make sure that those people are safe what are the [5:25] measures that are taking place what we recommend in our risk assessment which we published yesterday is that [5:35] people should wear masks regular face masks and of course clinical in clinical care um people should [5:43] consider wearing ffp2 masks but as said it's really like not a respiratory disease which does transmit so [5:52] easily so regular precautions are are sufficient and recommended at this point in time and just a final [6:00] message from you thomas to the public to those that are watching and listening at the moment about the [6:05] risk to the general public at the moment yeah the risk to the general public is very low as we stated [6:13] also in our risk assessment and and it's again because first of all the the rodent is not present in [6:20] europe where the hunter virus usually gets infected or transmitted to humans then human to human [6:27] transmission only occurs um under very close contacts health authorities and passengers are informed [6:36] for contact tracing for follow-up so we we know that if this is handled in in those within those [6:43] procedures um the risk remains very low that is reassuring thomas hoffman thank you very much for [6:49] for joining us