Portugal Colonial - Evacuations 'ongoing' from hantavirus-hit cruise ship

Three people -- two crew members and one other person -- thought to be infected with the virus were being taken off the MV Hondius, anchored off Cape Verde, the WHO said.

"The three of them are stable, and one of the three is asymptomatic," Ann Lindstrand, the WHO representative in Cape Verde, told AFP.

The ship has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when the UN's health agency was informed that three passengers had died and the suspected cause was hantavirus -- a rare disease usually spread from infected rodents typically through urine, droppings and saliva.

The Dutch-flagged cruise ship set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1 and has been anchored off Cape Verde since Sunday while emergency teams try to deal with a situation.

The ship's Dutch operator Oceanwide Expeditions had said on Tuesday that two seriously ill crew members -- one British, one Dutch -- and a passenger would be taken off the ship and flown to the Netherlands, allowing the vessel to sail on to Spain's Canary Islands.

Health experts raised concern that a wider outbreak could be on the cards after a Dutch woman with symptoms left the ship and was flown on a passenger plane to Johannesburg, where she later died on April 26.

Efforts are under way to trace people on that flight, which South African-based carrier Airlink said was carrying 82 passengers and six crew.

On Wednesday the Swiss health ministry also confirmed that a cruise ship passenger had been hospitalised with hantavirus in Zurich.

South Africa's health minister Aaron Motsoaledi told a parliament committee on Wednesday that tests had found the Andes strain, the only one that can be passed between humans.

"But as we said, we want to repeat again, such transmission is very rare and only happens due to very close contact between people," the minister said.

The Geneva University Hospital also confirmed it was the Andes strain, adding that it was behind all three deaths from the ship.

Some passengers and crew have been in isolation after Cape Verde authorities barred the ship from docking. The ship is anchored just off the island nation's capital Praia.

Spain's health ministry said on Tuesday the ship was due to arrive in the Canaries in "three to four days", adding that the island chain was the closest place with the necessary facilities.

The cruise counted 88 passengers and 59 crew members, with 23 nationalities onboard, the WHO said.

Two hantavirus cases have been confirmed -- including one of the fatalities and a British passenger currently in intensive care in Johannesburg -- with five further suspected cases, the WHO said earlier.

The WHO was trying to work out how hantavirus had appeared on the ship, with the first person who died having developed symptoms on April 6.

Human-to-human transmission has only been reported in previous outbreaks of one specific hantavirus called Andes virus, which circulates in South America.

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L.Mesquita--PC