A cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak is expected to arrive at the Spanish island of Tenerife in the early hours of Sunday, according to

May 7 (UPI) -- Public health officials conducted contract tracing across the globe Thursday in response to cruise ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions' announcement that 29 people disembarked the vessel after the start of a hantavirus outbreak.

Health officials in at least a dozen countries, including the U.S., are tracking dozens of passengers who traveled aboard the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak. Those passengers have since dispersed across the world and are in five states as of Thursday afternoon: Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Virginia. Despite the widening international response, World Health Organization officials say the outbreak is not the start of a new pandemic or epidemic. “While this is a serious incident, WHO assesses the public health risk as low,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement Thursday. Weeks after the first death on April 11, 29 passengers disembarked on the remote Atlantic island St. Helena without undergoing contact tracing, cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said in a statement. The dead person was also removed from the vessel. The company said it was “working to establish” the whereabouts of all those who disembarked April 24 in St. Helena and had contacted…