A Dutch doctor treating patients from a hantavirus outbreak on an Atlantic cruise ship has said the virus is far less transmissible than COVID-19.
Dr. Karin Ellen Veldkamp, head of infectious diseases at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, firmly rejected concerns that hantavirus could become "a second COVID-19" in an interview with AFP on Sunday. "No. It is not the same," she said. "We know human-to-human transmission is possible, and we suspect that may have happened on board, but it is not like COVID. Transmission is much more difficult."
Dutch authorities the previous day dispatched an emergency flight to the waters of Cape Verde in West Africa, where the MV Hondius was docked, and transported a symptomatic Dutch physician (41) and a British passenger to Leiden University Medical Center and Radboud University Medical Center in the east. Both patients were subsequently confirmed to have hantavirus infection. Veldkamp said the patient at Leiden University Medical Center is being treated in an isolation room by trained medical staff under strict disease control guidelines. "We do not refuse to enter isolation rooms, and we are well trained to provide care safely," she said. Patients are isolated while symptomatic, and isolation is lifted once post-recovery testing confirms a negative result.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far confirmed a total of five hantavirus cases related to the cruise ship. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference in Switzerland on the same day that "eight cases, including three deaths, have been reported, of which five have been confirmed as hantavirus, with the remaining three classified as suspected cases." The WHO said the hantavirus in this outbreak is the Andes variant, the only strain known to be capable of human-to-human transmission, and noted that additional cases could emerge given the incubation period, though it maintains that the current public health risk is low.
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