On April 1, the MV Hondius cruise left the port of Ushuaia in southern Argentina.
The vessel has since grabbed attention all around the world following an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare disease typically transmitted from the faeces of infected rodents.
Health officials are meeting the ship today in Granadilla on the island of Tenerife, from where British passengers might be flown home on a dedicated repatriation flight.
While the source of the outbreak stays unknown, a clue may lie within the ship’s origin.
Argentina has experienced an unusually high variety of hantavirus cases this yr.
The South American country has recorded 101 cases since last June, CNNreported.
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It is a 10 per cent increase on the identical period the previous yr, when just 59 cases were recorded.
Ushuaia will not be one in all the places to record instances of hantavirus, with the disease typically concentrated in 4 geographical areas of Argentina, including provinces within the north east, north west and the south.
Experts now consider that climate change has contributed to the rise in cases within the country, with habitat destruction resulting in more exposure to the urine and faeces of infected rodents.
Argentina’s Ministry of Health said: ‘Increasing human interaction with wild environments, habitat destruction, the establishment of small urbanisations in rural areas, and the results of climate change contribute to the looks of cases outside historically endemic areas.’
Temperature changes are also affecting the spread of the disease. Ecosystem changes affect the long-tailed mouse, which is the carrier of the virus in Argentina and Chile.
Rodents are more capable of adapt to climate change – which could explain why we’re seeing higher cases of the disease.
This yr, the capital region of Buenos Aires has been the epicentre of the disease, with 42 cases recorded.
Dutch couple Mirjam Schilperoord, 69 and her husband, who each died of the disease after boarding MV Hondius, are thought to have visited at the very least two affected areas, Misiones and Neuquén, during a tour of South America.
The sudden outbreak on board the cruise ship has triggered recollections of the Covid pandemic.
There are some parallels. Each viruses are thought to originate from animals, with experts pointing to climate change and human encroachment on natural habitats as possible causes of the outbreaks.
Nevertheless, unlike COVID, epidemiologists don’t consider hantavirus will grow to be the subsequent pandemic.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Tenerife that the danger to the general public posed by the virus remained ‘low’.
In contrast to the easily transmitting COVID, hantavirus rarely spreads between humans, and when it does, it is frequently after prolonged contact with an infected person.
Dr Charlotte Hammer, an assistant professor in health security and infectious diseases at Cambridge University, said that the particular conditions onboard the MV Hondius didn’t reflect those of on a regular basis life, with passengers on cruises routinely mixing in tight spaces.
‘By way of the transmission potential, it’s incredibly different from Covid’, she said.
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