WHO calls everyone aboard hantavirus-hit ship high-risk

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that all people aboard a cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak should be considered “high-risk” contacts and actively monitored for 42 days.
“We classify everybody on board as what we call a high-risk contact,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, told a media briefing. She noted that currently “nobody on board has any symptoms,” but recommended “active monitoring and follow-up of all the passengers and crew who disembark for a 42-day period.”
However, she stressed that the risk to the public and people in the Canary Islands, where the MV Hondius is expected to dock on Sunday, remains “low.”