90-Second Read: Cruise ship at center of Hantavirus outbreak to dock in Spain Sunday

Spain is preparing to receive more than 140 passengers and crew members from a cruise ship on which at least eight people became ill and three died due to Hantavirus. This outbreak is caused by the Andes virus, the only known Hantavirus strain to spread from person to person, primarily through prolonged, close contact. Public health staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet passengers in Tenerife, Spain as they deboard a cruise ship that has been at the center of a Hantavirus outbreak. Public health staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will meet the cruise ship in Tenerife and escort American passengers back to the United States aboard a charter flight, CNN reports.

Although a flight attendant who worked on a KLM flight that carried a female cruise ship passenger who subsequently died of Hantavirus has been hospitalized, the flight attendant has tested negative for the virus, according to Inside Medicine. The outbreak of the rodent-carried virus occurred on a Dutch cruise ship traveling between Argentina and the Canary Islands. So far no cases have been identified in anyone other than passengers on the Dutch cruise ship. The ship is now heading for Tenerife, the largest of Spain's Canary Islands, off the coast of West Africa, according to media reports.

The Dutch-flagged vessel, the MV Hondius, was sailing from Argentina to Cape Verde when the outbreak was discovered. Hantavirus infections, which can cause respiratory symptoms, are rare and usually spread through contact with the urine, feces, or saliva of infected rodents, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The top US official responsible for public health on cruise ships has recently retired, according to an internal memo obtained by STAT. Experts in infectious disease and public health have criticized the CDC's relative silence on the outbreak, arguing that the US response so far suggests the country is ill-prepared to handle another major health crisis.

Additional CDC staff will meet cruise ship passengers in Nebraska, where passengers will be quarantined in an effort to control the virus, according to CNN. Although the United States and Argentina left the WHO earlier this year, both countries are cooperating with international efforts to contain the outbreak, according to STAT. Among the 8 suspected cases, only 3 have been confirmed by laboratory testing.