Two Indian crew members are confirmed to be among the 149 people currently stranded aboard the MV Hondius, a luxury expedition vessel immobilised in the Atlantic Ocean following a lethal hantavirus outbreak.
According to reports from Firstpost, the ship, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, was en route from Argentina to Spain's Canary Islands when the virus outbreak occurred.
The vessel's journey has been fouled up by the deaths of three passengers till now, a Dutch couple and a German national, while the World Health Organization (WHO) reports at least eight other suspected cases, including a Swiss citizen.
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Global Trace as Passengers Reach Home Soil
The outbreak has triggered an international health alarm due to the diverse nationalities of the 149 people on board, representing 28 different countries. The passenger and crew manifest includes 38 individuals from the Philippines, 31 from the UK, 23 from the US, and others from nations including Canada, Ukraine, and Poland, as per media reports.
Concerns are mounting as health authorities reveal that several travelers had already disembarked and returned home on international flights to the UK and US before the full scale of the outbreak was realised.
While the two Indian crew members remain on the ship, Oceanwide Expeditions has yet to disclose their specific roles or health status, stating they will only release verified information, as per media reports.
WHO Clarifies Pandemic Risks and Safety Protocols
The WHO has moved quickly to differentiate hantavirus from more contagious respiratory viruses. During a recent briefing, Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO infectious disease epidemiologist, emphasized that this event is not comparable to the Covid-19 pandemic. "This is not Covid, this is not influenza, it spreads very, very differently," she explained.
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However, the Andes strain linked to this specific outbreak is unique for its documented, though limited, human-to-human transmission. To mitigate risk, everyone on the MV Hondius has been ordered to wear masks, and medical staff have been equipped with high-level personal protective equipment (PPE).
Investigating the Transmission Route
As the MV Hondius nears its expected May 10 arrival in the Canary Islands, investigators are focused on how the virus, typically spread via rodents, was transmitted in a luxury ship environment. Because symptoms can take up to eight weeks to manifest, global health agencies are aggressively tracing all passengers who left the ship during its South Atlantic transit.
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