One of 17 American passengers evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship has been confirmed to be infected with hantavirus, the US Department of Health and Human Services said.
The department said 17 American citizens are currently on their way home on a State Department-provided plane. Two of them have been placed in biological isolation wards as a precaution.
“One passenger is currently experiencing mild symptoms and another passenger tested weakly positive on a PCR test,“ the statement added.
French doctors have confirmed hantavirus infection in a French citizen evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship. This was announced by French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist on France Inter radio.
“The hantavirus tests are positive“, she said, referring to a woman who had previously shown symptoms of the disease caused by the virus. The minister confirmed that the woman, along with several other French citizens, was on board the ship. She said the passenger's condition deteriorated overnight after returning to France by plane on May 10.
“The patient is being treated in a hospital specializing in infectious diseases, where a number of protective measures have been introduced in the wards, apparently to prevent the spread of the virus,“ Rist said. She added that authorities in France have identified 22 people who were in contact with those infected with hantavirus.
Earlier, French Prime Minister Sébastien Le Corneille promised that the French government would take appropriate measures to protect the country's population from hantavirus.
On April 1, the MV Hondius ship set sail from Ushuaia, Argentina, heading for the Canary Islands. Eight people on board tested positive for hantavirus and three died. There were approximately 150 people on board, mostly citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands. On May 10, the MV Hondius arrived in the Spanish island of Tenerife (in the autonomous community of the Canary Islands).
According to Anais Legan, an expert with the World Health Organization (WHO), there are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for the hantavirus outbreak that occurred on board the ship. The WHO expert said that prompt medical attention remains the main measure to combat hantaviruses. The organization also noted that the outbreak on the cruise ship does not mark the beginning of a new pandemic.