Image source, Kasem Hato

On Tuesday – before the latest evacuations – Hondius passenger and travel influencer Kasem Hato shared a video online, explaining what life is like on the virus-hit ship.

In footage translated by Reuters, he says: “Our journey on the ship started from the south of Argentina and the plan was to cross the Atlantic, passing at some isolated islands to see the nature and wildlife and to conclude our journey in the country of the Cape Verde.”

But he says after they arrived at their first island, a passenger’s health deteriorated and he died.

Hato says they continued the voyage, but someone else began showing symptoms of hantavirus, and they stopped on Ascension Island so that person could be evacuated.

The boat continued to Cape Verde, when two more people began to feel unwell, he says. But Cape Verde “refused to medically evacuate the sick and refused our presence completely in their waters”.

As for the other 150 or so passengers, he says “most people on the ship have responded to the issue very calmly”.

They believe “the possibility of becoming infected by this virus is very small… it’s believed that the first person who died on the boat is the person who brought this virus onto the boat, and in one way or another, spread the infection to some of the other people on the ship”.

“Ultimately, this virus is not a new virus to the world,” he says. “If it was going to be a pandemic, it would have already happened a long time ago.”