• Passengers are disembarking the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak, Spain’s Ministry of Health said, in a carefully managed repatriation operation in Tenerife involving multiple nations. All passengers still aboard the vessel were screened Sunday and did not show symptoms, according to health authorities.
• Since the vessel departed Argentina last month, the deaths of three people have been linked to hantavirus — a rare disease typically caused by exposure to infected rats’ urine or feces. It remains a low risk to the general public, according to the World Health Organization, which also emphasized how the virus differs from Covid-19.
• The operation has caused tensions in the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. The territory’s leader said last week that he opposed the ship docking.
• Meanwhile, British medics parachuted onto a remote Atlantic island to treat a UK national with suspected hantavirus, who left the ship weeks before the outbreak became clear.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pushed back Sunday against criticism of the agency’s response to the hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship, saying the public shouldn’t “be panicking.”
Continue reading the complete article on the original source
