Transcript
Lucy Hoffman (0:00)
This is the Guardian.
Oliver Holmes (0:10)
The reason why everyone is really worried about this story is because we all remember what happened during COVID when there were cruise liners stranded. Three people are dead after a suspected outbreak of what's called hantavirus aboard a cruise ship. Nearly 150 people on board. It's now been confirmed as this Andes strain of this virus. A 70 year old Dutch man got sick and then eventually died. Everyone's going to be isolating in their rooms. Some of the rooms are very small, they've just got little portholes. There's going to be a lot of worry. And then of course, the ship still needs to operate.
Lucy Hoffman (0:43)
Three people have been evacuated from a cruise ship with an outbreak of a deadly virus. What do we know about the situation on board from the Guardians today? In Focus, this is the latest. With me, Lucy Hoffman. Well, joining me is Oliver Holmes, who is a Guardian reporter who's been across this for us. I mean, Oliver, this is just a nightmare scenario, isn't it? I was surprised to read, given that this story has been making headlines in the last few days. The outbreak of the infection of hantavirus, this virus that is transmitted by rodents but has spread on this cruise liner. Actually, people set off on this cruise liner in early April to tell me about the trajectory, what's happened since then?
Oliver Holmes (1:27)
Yeah, so they set off from Argentina and somebody, a 70 year old Dutchman, got sick quite quickly after that. It's clear that he got sicker and sicker and then eventually died. But the ship carried on. It's a sort of luxury cruise ship.
Lucy Hoffman (1:43)
Yeah, the MV Hondius, it's called.
Oliver Holmes (1:45)
Exactly, it's a Dutch ship and it's actually not the type of mega cruise ship that you might imagine. It's much smaller, it's got capacity for 150 people and it explores the Arctic and Antarctic regions and the Atlantic. So it's a small ship and what will have happened is that this man would have got sick and then other people will have got sick. And I think there was possibly this slow realisation that something very serious was happening.
Lucy Hoffman (2:09)
So, Ali, how many people have died? Because it's being reported that there are eight suspected cases on board.
Oliver Holmes (2:15)
So there was this one man who died. His body remained on the ship for multiple days and then his wife, who was clearly sharing a cabin with him, also started feeling sick and disembarked the boat with his body. She later collapsed and died herself. And then later another man died on the ship. And then there's also a British person who's in Intensive care, who left the ship. And there are other suspected cases on the ship as well. And some more people have been evacuated.
