Rat virus ‘was introduced onto cruise ship by birdwatcher couple who visited rubbish dump to snap birds earlier than setting off’: Possible trigger revealed – as Brits face eight-week quarantine

The deadly rat-borne virus that has killed three people on a cruise ship may have been brought onto the vessel by a birdwatching couple, according to Argentine officials.

Investigators said a Dutch couple, who later boarded the MV Hondius, visited a landfill site to snap birds in the city of Ushuaia, and may have been exposed to rodents carrying the lethal infection.

It comes as more than 20 Britons on board the doomed cruise ship will be repatriated as soon as possible – and face being quarantined for up to eight weeks.

The MV Hondius will arrive at the Canary Islands on Saturday after local authorities were overruled by Spain‘s PM and ordered to allow the ship to dock so passengers and crew members could be checked by medics.

Canary Islands authorities tried to reject orders from Spain, fearing anyone on board the ship could bring the deadly virus onto their territory.

Their fears only grew when it emerged today that the disease had spread to Switzerland after a passenger – who left the cruise before the virus outbreak – developed symptoms upon arriving home and is now being treated in Zurich. 

The man is being held in an isolation unit and may be quarantined for up to 45 days to ‘ensure that there is no risk to other patients,’ the head physician of the Zurich hospital told local news outlet 20minuten.

The disease has an incubation period of up to eight weeks – which, in theory, is how long the 21 British passengers face being held in quarantine if the UK government decides to copy Spain’s example.

The outbreak of the rare, rat-borne illness that has a 40 per cent mortality rate has left three people dead and several others seriously ill on the luxury cruise costing £10,000 per person.

But despite the outbreak having sparked international alarm, the World Health Organisation has said the situation does not have similarities with the start of the Covid pandemic.

‘This is not the next Covid, but it is a serious infectious disease,’ WHO’s top epidemic expert Maria Van Kerkhove said. ‘Most people will never be exposed to this.’

It comes as a seriously ill British doctor was evacuated from the ship earlier on Wednesday.

Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia confirmed he is now in a ‘stable’ condition, having previously been ‘critical’.

Footage shows medics wearing hazmat suits boarding the luxury MV Hondius off the coast of Cape Verde in a desperate attempt to get three patients to specialist treatment in Europe. 

Separate videos and images show the patients – also wearing personal protective equipment – lying on stretchers as they are wheeled into an ambulance. 

As well as the 56-year-old Brit, a 41-year-old Dutchman and a 65-year-old German were also evacuated.

The emergency evacuation comes after a flight scheduled to escort the British doctor – suffering with ‘acute respiratory symptoms’ – to the Canary Islands was cancelled without explanation.

While the Dutchman is also presenting with ‘acute symptoms’, the German is asymptomatic but is understood to have been a close contact of a person who died on the ship on May 2.

The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, previously said the three patients were being evacuated to the Netherlands. 

Two specialist doctors in infectious diseases are heading from the Netherlands to the MV Hondius ship, its operator said on Wednesday.

‘Two infectious disease physicians, currently en route from the Netherlands, will embark m/v Hondius and remain with the vessel after its anticipated departure from Cape Verde,’ said Oceanwide Expeditions in a statement.

These doctors would only board the ship following the successful transfer of the three patients, the operator added. 

The vessel remains stuck in the Atlantic off Cape Verde – an island nation off the coast of West Africa, where it has been marooned for days, after health officials also previously refused to authorise its docking to protect ‘national public health’.

The ship – carrying a total of 146 people – is en route to the Granadilla port in Tenerife instead, where all passengers will be evacuated, despite fierce opposition from the president of the Canary Islands.

On Wednesday, the president of the Canaries, Fernando Clavijo, told COPE radio station that he had requested an ‘urgent meeting’ with the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, saying that the decision to allow the cruise ship to dock on Canarian territory was not based on ‘any technical criteria’.

He added that there is ‘insufficient information to maintain a message of calm and guarantee the safety of the Canary Island population’.

Clavijo also criticised the Spanish government for its ‘institutional disloyalty’ and lack of professionalism for failing to keep him informed.

He also reproached the Minister of Health, García, for not providing him with explanations about the criteria followed by the WHO.

‘I cannot allow it to enter the Canary Islands,’ he insisted.

But Garcia has insisted there is ‘no risk’ to the local population, emphasising that the evacuation effort will ‘avoid contact’ with Canary Island citizens.

Spanish passengers will be quarantined on a Madrid military base, while people from other countries will be repatriated if they show no symptoms.

Spain’s health ministry has previously said the ship was due to arrive at the Islands in ‘three to four days’, adding that upon arrival, ‘crew and passengers will be duly examined, cared for, and transferred to their respective countries.’ 

The health ministry said the WHO had explained that the Canary Islands were ‘the closest place with the necessary capabilities’ medically.

Clavijo was insistent on not allowing the ship to dock there, claiming neither the citizens or government ‘can rest easy because the risk to the Canarian population is clearly very real’.

‘We do not know the condition of the passengers or how many have been infected,’ he said.

But Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the country has both legal and ethical reasons to assist the ship, particularly due to the presence of 14 Spanish nationals on board.

‘We cannot forget that our own constitution establishes that authorities should help all of our citizens,’ he said. 

The MV Hondius has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when the WHO was informed that the rare disease – usually spread from infected rodents, typically through urine, droppings and saliva – was suspected of being behind the deaths of three of its passengers.

As others fell ill, 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.

New footage from inside the vessel showed the ship’s decks mostly deserted, with only a few people wearing medical masks moving about.

Common spaces were empty as passengers were isolated in their cabins. At least five people with full protective gear, white overalls, boots and face masks, were seen disembarking from the ship into a small vessel.

Another video shared on social media by Turkish influencer Ruhi Çenet shows the moment the vessel’s crew told passengers someone had died.

Footage shows a crew member saying: ‘One of our passengers sadly passed away last night.

‘I’m told by the doctor we’re not infectious. The ship is safe when it comes to that.’

But the video then cuts to Çenet telling the camera that ‘the situation was much worse than we were told,’ as he explains that a day after he left the ship, the wife of the person who had died also passed away.

‘After a third person died, it became clear that there was hantavirus on board.’

The Dutch operator Oceanwide Expeditions indicated Tuesday that a solution was in sight, with plans to evacuate the two sick crew members to the Netherlands for ‘urgent medical care’, along with the third person who had been in close contact with a German passenger who died on Saturday.

Once the evacuation takes place, MV Hondius ‘can continue its route’, Ann Lindstrand, the WHO’s representative in Cape Verde, said.

The cruise set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1 destined for Cape Verde, and counted 88 passengers and 59 crew members, with 23 nationalities onboard.

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

The first stricken passenger, a 70-year-old Dutch man, died on April 11 as the ship steamed towards Tristan da Cunha.

His body remained on board until April 24, when it ‘was disembarked on St Helena, with his wife accompanying the repatriation,’ Oceanwide Expeditions said.

The man’s 69-year-old wife later felt sick on a flight from St Helena to South Africa, and she died on April 26 upon arrival at the emergency department of Johannesburg hospital.

Health officials are now trying to trace more than 80 people who were on board her flight.

The next day, a British passenger on the cruise became ‘seriously ill ⁠and was medically evacuated to South Africa,’ the company said.

South African authorities have confirmed that the 69-year-old British patient, who is being treated in a Johannesburg hospital, tested ​positive for the hantavirus.

On May 2, another passenger of German nationality died on board the ship.

According to the UK Government’s hantavirus advice, symptoms typically appear between two and four weeks after exposure, but can range from two days to eight weeks, meaning illness may develop in other passengers in the coming days or weeks.

Around 40 per cent of cases result in death, according to the US Centres for Disease Control.

Early symptoms can include fatigue, fever, muscle aches and intense headaches.

They are not usually spread person-to-person and are typically only transferred via bodily fluids and close contact.

The risk of contracting the illness can be reduced through minimising contact with rodents.

Meanwhile, the UK Government is putting ‘plans in place’ for the onward travel of Britons stuck aboard the cruise ship, the Prime Minister said.

In a post on X, Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘My thoughts are with those affected by the hantavirus outbreak onboard the MV Hondius.

‘We are working closely with international partners to support British nationals on board, and we’re putting plans in place for their safe onward travel.

‘The risk to the wider public remains very low – protecting the British people is our number one priority.’