The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville said officials are tracking a global hantavirus alert after an outbreak aboard a cruise ship killed three passengers.

Dr Darville said on Friday that the World Health Organization issued an alert after the MV Hondius, a cruise ship travelling from Argentina to parts of the east coast of Africa, experienced an outbreak.

The Ministry of Health and Wellness said the vessel is not scheduled to call at any port in The Bahamas or elsewhere in the Caribbean. Its itinerary runs from Argentina to islands in the South Atlantic and then to South Africa.

The ministry said no Bahamians were identified among passengers or crew, and Dr Darville said the outbreak has not affected the Bahamian population. Still, he said the country’s surveillance team is aware of the threat the virus can pose.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event, Dr Darville said the government remains vigilant because hantavirus is spread through the inhalation of particles from rodent droppings and urine. The ministry said it is not easily transmitted from person to person.

Dr Darville compared the threat to leptospirosis, saying both diseases are linked to rodents.

“The Department of Public Health and the Ministry of Environment is working diligently to reduce the rodent population in the Commonwealth of Bahamas, and very soon you will hear about some new techniques that we are putting in place to actually take charge and reduce the rodent population throughout the country,” he said.

The cruise ship had three passengers die during or after the voyage from suspected hantavirus. The WHO said five of the eight suspected cases have now been confirmed.

Health authorities in several countries, including Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Singapore and South Africa, are isolating former cruise ship passengers and conducting contact tracing to identify people who may have been exposed.

International media reported that the hantavirus involved is the Andes strain, the only strain known for person-to-person transmission.

Asked whether The Bahamas was contacted for contact tracing, Dr Darville repeated that no Bahamians were onboard and said the alert came through the Caribbean Public Health Agency. He also noted that The Bahamas has one of the most robust cruise ship industries in the region.

He said the country has local gene sequencing capacity and one of the most sophisticated surveillance and analysis systems for HIV, upper respiratory viruses and other infectious diseases through the reference lab.

Meanwhile, Public Hospitals Authority managing director Dr Aubrynette Rolle said the public hospital system has ventilators and isolation facilities available if needed.

“No country would be able to say they have sufficient ventilators because the ventilators are really associated with your numbers. As it relates to ventilators, the hospital is equipped with ventilators. That is a part of the accident and emergency. The availability of it there,” Dr Rolle said.

“But you see mostly your ventilator patients in the intensive care unit or the neonatal. So we do have, we also do have backup.”

She said the public system also has support from colleagues such as Doctors Hospital during a crisis.

Dr Rolle said isolation rooms equipped with HEPA filtration systems and negative pressure technology are available.