Hantavirus: WHO recommends 42-day quarantine for evacuated passengers

Forty-two days of isolation, with active monitoring. This is not a routine precautionary measure: it is the recommendation that the World Health Organization deemed necessary to issue following the outbreak of Andes hantavirus aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, currently docked in the Canary Islands.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke directly during a briefing held at the end of the first day of passenger evacuations. “Our advice is clear: as of May 10, a 42-day quarantine,” he stated bluntly. However, Tedros specified that the WHO provides recommendations to member countries but does not have the power to enforce them: it is therefore up to individual governments to decide whether and how to apply them.

The situation has all the hallmarks of an international case. The MV Hondius set sail from Ushuaia, Argentina, about three weeks ago with approximately 150 passengers on board, mostly citizens of the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, and the Netherlands. The itinerary included several stops at islands in the Atlantic Ocean before calling at the Canaries, where the ship is now held following the onboard health emergency.

What makes the situation particularly delicate is the nature of the pathogen itself. Hantaviruses are a family of viruses capable of causing serious, potentially fatal diseases, including hantavirus pulmonary syndrome and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome. Infection primarily occurs through contact with infected rodents, specifically through urine, feces, and saliva, and not through direct human-to-human transmission, at least in the most common variants. However, the Andes variant represents a concerning exception: it is the only one for which person-to-person transmission has been documented.