BarcelonaSpain is studying whether to allow passengers and crew from the This morning the WHO explained that, after this episode, the luxury cruise ship would continue to its next stop, the final one, in the Canary Islands, where the ship would be cleaned to disinfect it completely. This international health authority has, in fact, even assured, in the words of its head of emerging diseases and zoonoses, Maria Van Kerkhove, that Spain was in agreement. <\/p>\n
But the Spanish government does not see it so clearly: “Depending on the epidemiological data collected from the ship, during its passage through Cape Verde, it will be decided which stop is the most pertinent,” sources from the Ministry of Health reported at midday. “Until then \u2013 the same sources continue \u2013 the Ministry of Health will not adopt any decision, as we have already made known to the World Health Organization.” Thus, the final decision should be agreed upon in a meeting that will take place at two in the afternoon, with the Spanish government, the Canary government, and the WHO.<\/p>\n
The ship left the Argentine port of Ushuaia on March 20 and was currently heading to Cape Verde, just before ending its journey, to the Canary Islands. On board were a total of 147 people: 88 passengers and 59 crew members. In total, there are people of 23 different nationalities, among whom there are 13 passengers and one crew member of Spanish nationality. Of these, five reside in Catalonia.<\/p>\n
Three of the passengers fell ill and died on board the ship, and a fourth person is in critical condition. In addition, there are three more suspected cases of contagion. In total, seven cases, of which only two have been definitively confirmed as positive for hantavirus in a laboratory. The rest, however, share many symptoms, according to the WHO.<\/p>\n
Repatriate passengers<\/p>\n
In the morning, the director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Sim\u00f3n, explained in statements to Catalunya R\u00e0dio that, once it leaves Cape Verde, “there will no longer be sick people on the ship” because they will have already been repatriated. He also clarified that “it is not clear” that the ship will finally head towards Spain and assured that teams are working at this time to clarify what the best destination for the ship is, whether to return to Dutch lands (where the company comes from) or to remain in Spain to be disinfected. “It is still not clear, the ship has a Dutch flag, and the possibility of it returning there is still being worked on,” he explained.<\/p>\n
In any case, if it finally docks in the Canary Islands, Sim\u00f3n sends a reassuring message: “Obviously, if a sick person arrives on the way, they will have to be removed from the ship and treated, and luckily they will reach an island that is very prepared to care for them without anyone else getting infected,” he assured. The health emergencies expert who largely led the coronavirus crisis also recalled that “although some cases do occur, the transmission of hantavirus between people is very difficult”. <\/p>\n
Hantavirus is the name given to a group of viruses that are mainly transmitted by inhaling particles of urine, excrement, or saliva from rodents \u2013 such as field mice and voles \u2013 that have been previously infected, which is why closed or poorly ventilated spaces are a potential focus of propagation. It is rare for these viruses to spread between people, except in very specific cases with some variants, but, if this happens, it can lead to severe respiratory illnesses, such as the cases detected on the cruise ship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BarcelonaSpain is studying whether to allow passengers and crew from the This morning the WHO explained that, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9609,9611,9605,1280,9610,9587,3871,2068,9612,9606,9607,9479,17,462,582,2205,778,9608],"class_list":{"0":"post-17230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-accepted","9":"tag-canary","10":"tag-contradicts","11":"tag-cruise","12":"tag-disembark","13":"tag-hantavirus","14":"tag-has","15":"tag-in","16":"tag-islands","17":"tag-it","18":"tag-not","19":"tag-ship","20":"tag-spain","21":"tag-that","22":"tag-the","23":"tag-who","24":"tag-with","25":"tag-yet"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}