Human-to-human hantavirus strain confirmed in cruise passenger

The Andes strain of the hantavirus that is transmissible between humans has been confirmed in a passenger evacuated to South Africa from a stricken cruise ship, the health minister said Wednesday.

Three people from the cruise ship have died, one of them in Johannesburg after she was transferred on a commercial flight from the Atlantic island of Saint Helena.

Another passenger, a British national, was evacuated separately and is in a Johannesburg hospital.

“The preliminary tests show that, indeed, this is the Andes strain,” South Africa’s health minister Aaron Motsoaledi told a parliament committee.

“And it happens to be the only strain out of the 38 that is known to cause human-to-human transmission.

“But as we said, we want to repeat again, such transmission is very rare and only happens due to very close contact between people.”

WHO has said there are two confirmed and five suspected cases of the virus.

South African authorities are tracing nearly 90 people who were on the flight that transported a 69-year-old Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after her husband, 70, died of the virus on the ship.

She had left the ship at Saint Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic, with “gastrointestinal symptoms” on April 24.

She died at the emergency department of a Johannesburg hospital on April 26 after her condition deteriorated during the flight, the World Health Organization said.

“We need to know who were the people who were in contact with this lady,” Motsoaledi said.

Besides the plane passengers, authorities were tracing people at the airport where she arrived and at the hospital where she was admitted, he said.

The South African-based carrier Airlink that operated the flight that transported the woman told AFP Tuesday that 82 passengers and six crew were on board the April 25 flight.