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"Spanish virologist Jose Antonio Lopez Guerrero has questioned the decision to keep passengers on board during the hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship that docked in the Canary Islands last week. "It was counterproductive to keep all the passengers on board the ship because of what is being experienced now… The maximum containment units of the hospitals demonstrate that these facilities were not available aboard the cruise ship,” Guerrero, who is a Professor of Microbiology at the Autonomous University of Madrid, said in an interview on Tuesday. He warned that if symptoms developed among more passengers on that ship, “certainly, the safety conditions would not have been met. For isolation and emergency treatments that specific units for this purpose we have hospital units.” This comes after the MV Hondius departed Tenerife on Monday following the disembarkation of the final six passengers and crew members. So far, nine cases have been confirmed, with two additional suspected cases, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Despite his opinion on how the situation was handled, Guerrero said he was certain hantavirus would not become a pandemic. “Hantavirus has a very low transmission rate that falls below the values that could actually cause an increase in transmissibility. What is called the basic reproduction number R0, which does not reach the figures to become pandemic due to its mode of transmission, due to its low transmissibility. As of today, between humans there is no possibility,” he said, adding that as viruses mutate, “you never know.” Hantavirus is primarily spread to humans through contact with rat droppings or saliva, but the Andes virus strain is uniquely capable of spreading between humans through prolonged close contact. "I think the virus containment protocols have worked quite well, considering that an outbreak on a luxury ship with so many countries involved has been an exceptional event,” Guerrero said, also praising the Spanish healthcare system. “The Spanish public healthcare system demonstrated during COVID that it is highly qualified, with very precarious means at the beginning, and despite that, the doctors stepped up. Many of them paid for it with their lives. Therefore, we were even an example to follow in other, in other countries.” Three deaths have been confirmed, while the remaining passengers will stay in quarantine for 45 days following their last possible exposure. The incident began during the vessel's South America itinerary, with initial exposure believed to have occurred before it departed Ushuaia on April 1. Contact tracing later expanded across multiple countries after passengers disembarked at different ports, including Saint Helena, before the outbreak was confirmed."
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