At least 23 passengers from the hantavirus-infected cruise ship MV Hondius have already left the boat and returned home, including to the US, according to a shocking new report — and one of them has already gotten sick.
The travelers did not realize that they had been exposed to the deadly virus — which has a mortality rate of up to 40% — when they left the expedition vessel during its stop at Saint Helena, a tiny island in the South Atlantic, on April 23, according to a passenger who is still aboard the ship.
“There are 23 people wandering around there, and until three days ago, no one had contacted them,” the passenger toldSpanish newspaper El Pais.
“The Australian went back to Australia, the one from Taiwan to Taiwan, the Americans to all corners of North America. The Englishman to England, the Dutch to their homes… I don’t remember the rest.”
One of those passengers, a Swiss man who had returned home with his wife, tested positive for hantavirus on Wednesday, authorities said.
The man was initially taken to a Zurich hospital and tested negative for the virus – which can lie dormant for up to eight weeks.
He was apparently just one of many expedition passengers who decided to hit the road during the Dutch vessel’s two-day stop in the British territory last month.
The passengers were only informed of theterrifying virus outbreakdays ago, according to the traveler who spoke to El Pais.
The disease usually spreads by contact with mouse or rat feces or urine — but the World Health Organization suspects that the Dutch cruise liner carries a rare strain that spreads human-to-human.
The passenger claimed that the WHO didn’t begin contacting the escapees until three days ago, despite the first passenger getting sick on April 6.
Source: Drudge Report
