Evacuated US and French nationals test positive for hantavirus

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - PARIS — A French woman and an American evacuated from the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak have tested positive for the virus, as the complex operation to repatriate those onboard continued on Monday.

The French woman was one of five French passengers who disembarked from the ship in Tenerife on Sunday before being flown to a hospital in Paris, authorities said.

French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said the woman, who started to feel very unwell on Sunday night and “tests came back positive”, was in serious condition, with 22 contact cases traced.

Rist told France Inter radio: “Unfortunately, her symptoms worsened overnight.” She is being treated in a specialized infectious diseases unit of a hospital in Paris.

An American passenger who was flown to Nebraska along with 16 others on Sunday evening also tested positive for the Andes strain – the only hantavirus strain that is transmissible between humans — but had no symptoms.

The US Department of Health and Human Services said a second American national on the repatriation flight had also shown mild symptoms, adding that both passengers had traveled back in "biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution".

In a statement on Monday, it said all 17 US citizens on the flight will "will undergo clinical assessment" at a medical facility in Nebraska.

Seven other US passengers had already returned and are being monitored in their home states, the statement added.

Personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks began escorting the travellers from the MV Hondius to shore in Tenerife in the Canary Islands on Sunday in an effort that was continuing on Monday.

More than 100 people of 23 nationalities are to be evacuated in less than 48 hours in an operation described by Spanish authorities as “complex” and “unprecedented”.

Three passengers — a Dutch couple and a German woman — have died after travelling on the vessel. Two of them are confirmed to have had the virus.

Hantaviruses are usually carried by rodents, but human transmission of the Andes strain, which the World Health Organization (WHO) believes was contracted by some of the Dutch ship's passengers while in South America, is possible.

Symptoms can include fever, extreme fatigue, muscle aches, stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and shortness of breath.

Officials say the risk of a major outbreak is very low.

A British national who resides in the US was evacuated along with the 17 American passengers.

Before the American case was confirmed, WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the decision by the US not to follow his organisation's guidelines over the hantavirus outbreak "may have risks".

The WHO has recommended 42 days of isolation for those leaving the MV Hondius.

But Dr Jay Bhattacharya, the acting head of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), said he did not want to cause public panic, insisting that human-to-human transmission was rare and it should not be treated like the Covid virus.

Cruise ship passengers were pictured wearing blue gowns, bouffant caps, and medical face masks as they disembarked on Sunday at the port of Grandilla de Abona in Tenerife.