World Health Organization epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said Wednesday that the current hantavirus outbreak onboard the MV Hondius is not the same as the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I want to be unequivocal here. This is not SARS-CoV-2. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic,” Van Kerkhove said. “This is an outbreak that we see on a ship.”
Van Kerkhove further noted that hantavirus doesn’t spread in the same way coronaviruses do, but rather requires “close, intimate contact.”
Anais Legand with the WHO said that a ship makes “a very specific environment” for transmission, but that there was no indication that there is something unusual about the virus.
-ABC News’ Joseph Simonetti and Zoe Magee
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