The Daily Populous Wednesday May 6th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by manilatimes.net and submitted by Sharkella

GENEVA, Switzerland — The World Health Organization said Tuesday it was tracing people on a flight between the island of Saint Helena and Johannesburg taken by a cruise ship passenger who died of hantavirus.

There had been 82 passengers and six crew onboard the April 25 flight, South African-based carrier Airlink told AFP.

They included a Dutch woman whose husband died of the virus on the ship and whose condition "deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg", WHO said in a statement.

She had left the ship in Saint Helena with "gastrointestinal symptoms" on April 24 and died upon arrival at the emergency department of a Johannesburg hospital where she tested positive for the hantavirus, it said.

"Contact tracing for passengers on the flight has been initiated," WHO said.

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Airlink operates one flight a week from the island, which takes around four hours.

The South African authorities had asked the airline to notify the passengers that they must contact the health department, a representative, Karin Murray, told AFP.

WHO said it suspected that hantavirus may have spread between people on the cruise ship, which was on Tuesday stranded off Cape Verde.

Besides the Dutch couple, a German passenger has also died. There are seven confirmed and suspected cases.

Welshgirlie2 on May 5th, 2026 at 21:48 UTC »

Latest update, the ship IS going to the Canary Islands, the ship's doctor is now going to be medevac'd to the Canary Islands ahead of everyone else as he's in a serious condition. Whether the other crew member who is ill is flown back to the Netherlands as originally stated or will be taken to the Canary Islands is not known.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8pypvjx1ko

Alexis_J_M on May 5th, 2026 at 19:01 UTC »

"Although uncommon, limited human to human transmission has been reported in previous outbreaks of Andes virus (a specific species of hantavirus). WHO currently assesses the risk to the global population from this event as low and will continue to monitor the epidemiological situation and update the risk assessment.".

-- https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2026-DON599

(From yesterday.)

"The risk to the general public is low,” Van Kerkhove said, outlining that any suspected human-to-human transmission would have occurred between very close contacts like married couples. “This is not a virus that spreads like flu or like COVID. It’s quite different." https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/05/africa/cruise-ship-hantavirus-who-intl

(From today) --

Rare-Election6332 on May 5th, 2026 at 18:30 UTC »

Contact tracing (86 edit) 88 people who landed in Africa's largest international airport?