AMSTERDAM: Health experts raced to contain the potential spread of the Hantavirus as two suspected cases emerged Friday away from the luxury cruise ship where the outbreak began.The most recent reports included a man who became ill after leaving the ship and a woman who became ill after sitting near an infected flight passenger on a plane.The incidents reported by health officials thousands of miles away — one in Spain, the other on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha — are separate from the World Health Organization’s count of eight people who fell ill on the Dutch-flagged ship, the MV Hondius. Three of these people have died.Four patients remained hospitalized on Friday in South Africa, the Netherlands and Switzerland.The ship Hondius is on its way to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and is expected to dock there early Sunday.On Saturday, the head of the World Health Organization sought to reassure worried residents that they were not in danger. The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with the Spanish Minister of Health, Monica Garcia, and the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande Marlaska, are scheduled to go to the island to coordinate the landing.
“I know you are worried,” Tedros said. “I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and see a ship sailing toward your shores, memories that none of us have fully subsided come to the surface. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I am not ignoring it for a moment.” “But I want you to hear me clearly: This is not another Covid. The current public health risks from Hantavirus remain low.”Passengers and crew members will be screened before disembarkation under guidelines finalized by the World Health Organization and other agencies. Agencies