THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A French woman evacuated from a cruise ship has tested positive for hantavirus and her health worsened in the hospital overnight, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said Monday.
The woman was among five French passengers repatriated Sunday to Paris from the MV Hondius. She developed symptoms on the flight to Paris, Rist told public broadcaster France-Inter.
One the 17 American passengers evacuated from the ship and flown to Nebraska also tested positive for the hantavirus but is not showing any symptoms, and another had mild symptoms, U.S. health officials said late Sunday. The flight landed in the early hours of Monday morning.
The Americans would first be taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which has a federally funded quarantine facility, to assess whether they have been in close contact with any symptomatic people and their risk levels for spreading the virus.
The medical school also has a special unit for treating people with highly infectious diseases that was used early in the pandemic for COVID-19 patients and previously for Ebola patients.
Passengers from the ship began flying home aboard military and government planes Sunday after the vessel anchored in the Canary Islands. Personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks had escorted the travelers from ship to shore in Tenerife in an effort that was continuing Monday.
The World Health Organization recommended close monitoring of the former passengers, and many countries quarantined them.
Earlier, officials from the Spanish Health Ministry, the World Health Organization and the cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions had said none of the more than 140 people who were then on the Hondius had shown symptoms of the virus.
All of the passengers were escorted Sunday from the ship to shore by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks. The planes arriving in Tenerife were to fly out passengers from more than 20 countries in an evacuation effort that was running into Monday.
Three people have died since the outbreak began, and five people who left the ship earlier were infected.
Health officials say risk to public is low
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has stressed that the general public should not be worried about the outbreak. “This is not another COVID. And the risk to the public is low. So they shouldn’t be scared, and they shouldn’t panic," he said Sunday.
Hantavirus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
WHO is recommending that passengers’ home countries “have active monitoring and follow-up, which means daily health checks, either at home or in a specialized facility,” said Maria van Kerkhove, the organization’s top epidemiologist.
Numerous countries have said their people will be quarantined or hospitalized for observation.
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