Suspected hantavirus outbreak on Atlantic cruise ship leaves 3 dead

A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus infection on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean killed three people, including an elderly married couple, and sickened at least three others, the World Health Organization and South Africa’s Department of Health said on Sunday.

The WHO said an investigation was under way, but that at least one case of hantavirus had been confirmed. One of the patients was in intensive care in a South African hospital, the UN health agency said, and it was working with authorities to evacuate two others with symptoms from the ship.

The Dutch company that operates the cruise said the ship was positioned off the coast of Cabo Verde, an island nation off Africa’s west coast formerly known as Cape Verde, and local authorities were assisting but had not allowed anyone to disembark. It said the two sick people on board requiring urgent medical care were crew members.

Hantaviruses, which are found throughout the world, are a family of viruses spread mainly by contact with the urine or faeces of infected rodents like rats and mice. They gained attention after the late actor Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from hantavirus infection in New Mexico last year.

Hackman died around a week later at their home from heart disease.

Hantaviruses cause two serious syndromes, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention: hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a severe disease that effects the lungs, and haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, a severe disease that affects the kidneys.