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World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a rare open letter to residents of the Spanish island Tenerife on Saturday, seeking to calm fears over the arrival of a cruise ship linked to a hantavirus outbreak and insisting: “this is not another COVID-19.”<\/p>
The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, carrying more than 140 passengers and crew, is expected to arrive at the Spanish island in the Canary Islands early Sunday after an outbreak of the Andes strain of hantavirus onboard left three people dead.<\/p>
Don’t Miss:\u00a0Hantavirus explained: What it is, how it spreads, and what India needs to know after the cruise ship outbreak<\/strong><\/p> Some residents in Tenerife have opposed the ship docking there, fearing the spread of the virus.<\/p> “It is not common for me to write directly to the people of a single community, but today I feel it is not only appropriate, it is necessary,” Tedros wrote.\u00a0“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word \u2018outbreak\u2019 and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest.”<\/p> But the WHO chief sought to draw a\u00a0distinction with the coronavirus pandemic. “But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another COVID-19. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low,” he wrote.<\/p> Don’t Miss:\u00a0Is Hantavirus similar to COVID? AIIMS professor explains after cruise ship outbreak<\/strong><\/p> The WHO said the virus aboard the ship is the Andes strain of hantavirus, which can, in rare cases, spread between humans. Hantavirus is usually transmitted through exposure to infected rodent droppings. Symptoms can appear between one and eight weeks after exposure.<\/p> Tedros said there were currently “no symptomatic passengers on board” and that a WHO expert had already been deployed to the vessel.\u00a0He detailed the Spanish government’s containment plan, saying passengers would be brought ashore at the industrial port of Granadilla, “far from residential areas,” before being moved in “sealed, guarded vehicles” through a “completely cordoned-off corridor” for repatriation to their home countries.<\/p> “You will not encounter them. Your families will not encounter them,” he wrote.<\/p>