After a luxury cruise became the center of a global health scare, the US began urgently tracking and monitoring passengers who were aboard the hantavirus-hit ship.
Panic has begun to ripple across the US after passengers from the ill-fated voyage returned home.
But experts assured residents, saying there was no reason to be alarmed.
The US began urgently tracking and monitoring passengers who were aboard the hantavirus-hit ship
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The US has joined several other countries in urgently tracking dozens of passengers, who were potentially exposed to hantavirus aboard the MV Hondius, which is currently sailing towards Spain’s Canary Islands.
Nearly 150 people are still aboard the ship that set sail from Argentina a month ago.
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Passengers from the three US states of Georgia, Arizona, and California are currently being monitored.
Officials said the passengers currently do not have any hantavirus symptoms.
29 passengers had disembarked the ship on April 24 in St. Helena
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Weeks after the cruise ship set sail from Argentina, 29 passengers had disembarked the ship on April 24 in St. Helena, which is a tiny, remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Disembarking with them in St. Helena was the body of a deceased Dutch man, who had passed away on board the cruise on April 11.
Reports claimed his passing was not a confirmed case of hantavirus, according to BBC.
Passengers still on board the ship have been sharing updates on social media
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The man’s wife had left the cruise in St. Helena and had boarded a KLM flight heading from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Amsterdam, Netherlands.
However, she became ill and was removed from the plane before takeoff.
A 69-year-old Dutch woman collapsed at the airport and lost her life in the hospital the following day
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Later, the 69-year-old woman collapsed at the airport and lost her life in the hospital the following day.
It was confirmed that she had contracted hantavirus.
The third Hondius-linked fatality was a German woman, who was also not a confirmed case of hantavirus, and her body remains on the ship.
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Apart from the Dutch woman who passed away, two others were confirmed to have contracted the hantavirus.
One of them is a British passenger receiving treatment in intensive care in South Africa, and the other is a Swiss passenger who is being treated in a Zurich hospital.
There are around five other suspected cases linked to the same cruise ship.
Two others were confirmed to have contracted the hantavirus and are currently hospitalized
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It was also reported on Thursday that a KLM flight attendant was hospitalized and being tested for hantavirus.
It is unclear whether the flight attendant was on the same aircraft as the elderly Dutch woman, who was briefly on a KLM flight before passing away.
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A spokesperson for the Dutch Health Ministry told NBC News, “I can confirm that a stewardess is in hospital now and she is being tested for the virus.”
As officials put their effort into contact tracing, the US is monitoring one person in Arizona, two in Georgia, and an unknown number in California.
Experts confirmed that the outbreak is the Andes strain of the virus, which is different from other strains and is known to be transmissible between people.
Hantavirus typically spreads from rodents and can infect humans when they breathe air contaminated with virus particles
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Hantavirus typically spreads from rodents and can infect humans when they breathe air contaminated with virus particles from rodent droppings, urine, or saliva. It can be transmitted from human to human through close contact.
Symptoms are likely to appear between one and six weeks of exposure.
The symptoms can include fever, extreme fatigue, nausea, muscle aches, stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting, or shortness of breath.
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Social media saw a wave of panic in recent days, with netizens expressing concern about the 29 passengers who left the ship.
“Those passengers should have stayed on board,” one wrote. “We are about to have another pandemic now.”
“So they let them go so they can infect a few people and start a plandemic scare. We aren’t doing this again,” another said.
“Why were these people allowed to scatter all over the planet?” one commented online
Health officials assured residents, saying there was no reason to panic.
“So the odds of this impacting the U.S. are slim to none. This particular strain is the only strain of hantavirus that has ever even indicated that it might spread person to person,” Dr. Linda Yancey, an infectious disease specialist with Memorial Hermann Health System, told KPRC 2.
Scientist and author Dr. Robert W Malone also told his 1.3 million followers on X that the chances of contracting the virus are slim.
“The truth is – Your odds of being struck by lightning are more than seven times greater than getting Hantavirus in the USA,” he tweeted.
“We don’t have the capacity for another world scarring virus,” one commented, “this is so sad”
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