{"id":947743,"date":"2026-05-09T06:38:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/947743\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T06:38:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:38:36","slug":"eu-working-around-the-clock-to-prepare-for-hantavirus-ship-passengers-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/947743\/","title":{"rendered":"EU working \u2018around the clock\u2019 to prepare for hantavirus ship passengers \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The aim is &#8220;to ensure a science-based response,&#8221; the spokesperson added. &#8220;Safeguarding public health is our absolute priority.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One of the key <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/217976\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">decisions<\/a> countries and disease experts are working on is &#8220;defining quarantine guidelines and protocols,&#8221; the Commission spokesperson continued.<\/p>\n<p>They are also establishing support measures for EU countries and their citizens, assessing transport and medical evacuation needs to help <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/spain-government-under-fire-handling-hantavirus-ship\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spain<\/a>, and ensuring cooperation between health, civil protection, and international partners to protect citizens, the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n<p>There are around 150 people, including passengers and staff, aboard the ship at the moment, and none of them is displaying any symptoms, the ship\u2019s operator Oceanwide Expeditions <a href=\"https:\/\/oceanwide-expeditions.com\/press\/press-update-m-v-hondius-7-may-2026-17-15-hrs-cet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">said<\/a> Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Hantavirus is a disease typically spread by infected rats. So far, there have been five confirmed cases of the Andes subtype linked to the cruise ship. It is the only variant known to have spread among humans, usually through close, prolonged contact.<\/p>\n<p>Analysis of the first genetic sequence of the virus, from a Swiss patient with the confirmed Andes strain, suggests \u201ca relatively typical naturally circulating \u2026 lineage \u2026 rather than a highly divergent or newly emerged variant,\u201d Piet Maes, president-elect of the Hantavirus Society, and virologist at the Plotkin Institute, University of Brussels, said Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The aim is &#8220;to ensure a science-based response,&#8221; the spokesperson added. &#8220;Safeguarding public health is our absolute priority.&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1433,2000,299,5187,81183,6552,2341,1093,184273],"class_list":["post-947743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-coronavirus","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-global-health","tag-infectious-diseases","tag-prevention","tag-public-health","tag-rob-jetten"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116543245956940691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}