A French woman and an American national evacuated from the cruise ship at the centre 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.
The French health minister, Stéphanie Rist, said the woman was in a serious condition on Monday. Rist said the woman started to feel very unwell on Sunday night and “tests came back positive”. Rist told France Inter radio: “Unfortunately, her symptoms worsened overnight.” She is being treated in a specialised 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 but had no symptoms. The US health department said one American national evacuated from the ship had tested positive for the Andes strain – the only hantavirus strain that is transmissible between humans – and another had “mild symptoms”.
Personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks began escorting the travellers from ship 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 from the MV Hondius – a Dutch couple and a German woman – have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents.
No vaccines or specific treatments exist for hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, from where the ship departed in April.
But health officials have said the risk for global public health is low and played down comparisons with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rist said 22 more contact cases had been identified among French nationals, including eight people who had travelled on a 25 April flight between Saint Helena and Johannesburg, and 14 more on a flight between Johannesburg and Amsterdam.
The Dutch woman who died was on the flight to Johannesburg and later briefly boarded a flight to Amsterdam but was removed before takeoff.
Health authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already disembarked from the ship, plus anyone who may have come into contact with them.
The French prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, will hold a meeting of medical advisers and ministers this afternoon to follow the issue.
The French government spokesperson, Maud Bregeon, told BFMTV that it was important not to spread a sense of “panic”. She said: “We’re following the situation with the greatest vigilance, on the basis that it is a virus that we know, that a 42-day isolation period has been decided and the objective remains the same: protecting the French people.”
The repatriation operation in Tenerife evacuated 94 people of 19 different nationalities on Sunday, the Spanish health minister, Mónica García, said.
Spanish officials said the evacuation of most of the ship’s nearly 150 passengers and crew, which includes 23 nationalities, would continue until the final repatriation flights to Australia and the Netherlands on Monday afternoon.
The ship will refuel in the morning and is expected to depart for the Netherlands with about 30 crew members on Monday evening.
Passengers wearing blue medical suits began disembarking the Dutch-flagged vessel on Sunday to reach the small industrial port of Granadilla on Tenerife.
They boarded Spanish army buses and travelled to Tenerife South airport in a convoy before boarding their repatriation flights.
The World Health Organization recommends a 42-day quarantine and “active follow-up”, including daily checks for symptoms such as fever, the UN body’s lead for epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in Geneva.