Hantavirus cruise outbreak sounds a dire warning for a mobile world

When 114 guests and 61 crew boarded the MV Hondius at Ushuaia, Argentina, on April Fool’s Day, they had no idea they were setting sail on a literal Ship of Fools. 

But because the cruise line’s top brass recklessly disregarded infection-control principles, those people — and thousands of others around the world — have been exposed to the rare Andes strain of hantavirus, a disease with a 40% mortality rate that spreads via rodent urine and droppings.

Among those who boarded that day was a 70-year-old birdwatcher who had spent his final days ashore trapsing through a rat-infested Argentinian dump looking for rare birds.   

He was seeking species, not feces — but it’s the feces that did him in.

On April 11, he dropped dead on board after five days of illness.

No tests were done to figure out why he died, even though his wife was there and could have been questioned about his whereabouts before boarding.

Instead, several days later, the ship’s command allowed 34 passengers and crew to leave the ship freely at the port of St. Helena and catch planes to destinations across the globe.

One of these passengers, the birdwatcher’s wife, became so ill while flying she had to be let off in Johannesburg, where she was taken to a hospital and died almost immediately.

A Spanish woman on the same flight developed symptoms and is being tested in her home province of Alicante.

Now health authorities across the globe are racing to trace the whereabouts of the passengers who left the ship and are still alive. 

Some have carried the virus into airplanes, big weddings, business meetings, hotels and hospitals in South Africa, the Netherlands and Switzerland. 

US officials are watching to see if any passengers who disembarked from the ship early and entered the United States, as well as air travelers who were exposed to them, come down with the infection.

The incubation period is up to seven weeks.

Here’s the latest on the deadly hantavirus outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship:

• Dutch hospital quarantines 12 staffers following hantavirus protocol breach
• Cop suffers fatal heart attack while helping passengers disembark hantavirus-stricken cruise
• WHO warns that more hantavirus cases are likely — but ‘no sign’ of widespread outbreak from cruise ship
• Spain reports new hantavirus case in passenger evacuated from MV Hondius cruise ship

But this mad scramble was completely preventable.

While there’s a lot of handwringing over the fact we don’t have a vaccine or medication to control Andes hantavirus, that’s not the real issue: It’s not economically feasible to develop targeted treatments for viruses so rarely seen. 

Vaccines now in progress could one day be customized for a rare virus — but once vaccination is being considered, the disease has already spread widely.

In other words, infection control has failed.

The ongoing hantavirus scare is a reminder that rigorously following infection-prevention principles is a must as more and more travelers invade ecosystems harboring thousands of untreatable viruses.

That means isolating anyone showing symptoms of illness, identifying the pathogen if possible, and curbing the spread.

The Hondius’ commanders blew it.

And the travel industry has to take more responsibility for infection-control routines, if it’s ferrying customers to remote places.  

Any unexplained illness is a red flag, particularly when it strikes a traveler known to have been exposed to the wild.

Not until May 2, almost a month after shipboard exposure began, did the ship’s authorities ask the World Health Organization for help, as people on board continued to fall ill. 

WHO personnel, wearing masks and infection-control suits, evacuated the remaining passengers on Sunday, transporting them in sealed buses and military aircraft to quarantine units in various countries.

But the saga is not over: Hospitals on multiple continents are now dealing with patients who walked through their doors sick with an unidentified infection.    

Hospitals that routinely practice rigorous infection prevention likely stopped the virus in its tracks.

But on Monday, a Dutch hospital disclosed that it’s quarantining 12 staffers who handled the blood and urine of a hantavirus patient without taking precautions. 

Where hospitals are lax, the infection may spread.  

It’s a lesson we should have learned in 2003, when two travelers from Asia arrived at two Canadian hospitals unknowingly carrying the SARS virus. 

The patient who went to an emergency room in Vancouver was asked immediately about recent travel, then whisked into an isolation facility and treated by personnel wearing gowns, gloves, goggles and masks. 

But the patient who went to a hospital in Toronto sat for hours in the emergency room, infecting other patients — and eventually killing some of them. 

Then medical personnel multiplied the failure when they neglected to wear goggles while inserting a breathing tube. 

Doctors became infected and took the disease home to their families and neighbors, sparking an epidemic.

Tragically, these failures are being repeated. 

A mobile world makes infection prevention — in the travel industry and in hospitals — more vital than ever. 

When it’s ignored, your life is at risk. 

Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York, is founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.