Spain’s health ministry has confirmed that another individual evacuated from a cruise ship affected by hantavirus has contracted the disease.
The infected person, a Spanish national among 14 individuals quarantined at a military hospital in Madrid following their evacuation from the MV Hondius, tested positive for the rat-borne virus on Monday, despite not exhibiting any symptoms.
This brings the total to three passengers who have tested positive for the disease after returning to their respective countries.
On the same day, a symptom-free American and a French citizen were also confirmed to have the virus. Authorities continue to reassure the public that the likelihood of a widespread outbreak remains low.
According to the French government, the French woman’s condition has worsened significantly, and she is now in a serious condition due to hantavirus.
And a second American national on Sunday’s repatriation flight has also shown mild symptoms, according to the US health department, who added that both passengers travelled back in ‘biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution’.
The cruise ship left Tenerife for the Netherlands on Monday after its final six passengers – four Australians, one Briton and one New Zealander – and some crew members were evacuated.
Three people – a Dutch couple and a German woman – have died after travelling on the vessel, two of whom were confirmed to have had the virus.
Persons with protective suits wait in line after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius docked in the port of Granadilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands on May 11
Passengers wave from a coach after disembarking from the cruise ship MV Hondius, affected by a hantavirus outbreak, at the port of Granadilla de Abona, Tenerife, Spain, May 11
Medical staff direct some of the last passengers to be evacuated from the MV Hondius on May 11, in Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands, Spain
More than 90 of the passengers and crew of the Hondius were sent home on Sunday, after being escorted from the ship to shore by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks.
After all passengers disembarked from the vessel, it sail for the Netherlands late on Monday evening, with 25 crew as well as a doctor and a nurse, and is expected to arrive on May 17.
Those remaining onboard include 17 people from the Philippines, four from the Netherlands (including the two medical staff), four from Ukraine, one from Russia and one from Poland.
It comes as a Dutch hospital in the city of Nijmegen treating a hantavirus patient quarantined 12 staffers in a preventative measure – after blood and urine were handled without updated and more strict protocols.
‘We will carefully investigate the course of events to learn from this so that it can be prevented in the future,’ said Bertine Lahuis, the chair of the Radboudumc hospital’s executive board.
Staff will be in isolation for six weeks.
The French woman who tested positive for the virus reported symptoms to doctors onboard the cruise but was told they were likely just anxiety, according to the Spanish health minister.
She had been suffering from flu-like symptoms but they appeared to be easing, and she did not have a fever, Javier Padilla said.
But despite the deaths of three people who had been onboard the ship, doctors from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the Spanish foreign health service dismissed her symptoms as anxiety or stress, he added.
‘They were not thinking that these symptoms were compatible with hantavirus. Why? Because what she was telling [them] was [that she had] an episode of coughing some days ago that had disappeared, and what she was having at that moment was kind of like stress or anxiety or nervousness. So it was not catalogued [as hantavirus],’ Padilla said.
The four other French nationals repatriated from the ship have been ‘immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice’, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said.
Hantaviruses are usually spread by wild rodents, but human transmission of the rare Andes strain is possible through close contact.
Symptoms can include shortness of breath, fever, extreme fatigue, muscle aches, stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhoea.
The bus carrying the British passengers and crew being repatriated from the MV Hondius makes its way to Arrowe Park Hospital on May 10, in Birkenhead, England
A passenger of the cruise ship MV Hondius sits with his mask off on a bus on the way to the airport, at the port of Granadilla de Abona, in Tenerife, Spain, May 10
Passengers from the MV Hondius, including one with his mask lowered, wave aboard a military bus after being transferred by boat to the industrial port of Granadilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife
Seven cases of the Andes hantavirus have now been confirmed among people who were passengers on board the cruise ship, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday.
Despite reports from the US Department of Health and Human Services on Sunday that one of the 17 repatriated Americans tested mildly positive for the lethal Andes strain of hantavirus, the WHO and Spanish Government disregarded these findings.
The Spanish health ministry said that the US citizen’s tests in Cape Verde gave a result considered by the Americans as a ‘weak positive’, ‘although for us it was not conclusive’, and another that was negative, the ministry said.
‘The person in question did not show symptoms when they were in Cape Verde. However, the US authorities have decided to treat the case as positive. For that reason, they requested a separate evacuation, which was carried out in a separate boat,’ the ministry added.
This brings the number of confirmed cases to seven, including a Dutch woman and a German woman who died, a Briton hospitalised in South Africa, a Briton hospitalised in the Netherlands, a Dutch man also in the Netherlands, a Swiss national and a French national.
WHO has listed two other suspected cases – the Dutch man who died before being tested, and the British national on Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island where there were no tests available.
Another British national who was previously hospitalised with hantavirus in South Africa after falling ill on the cruise is ‘clinically improving’, a health ministry spokesperson said.
The third British man with a confirmed case is 56-year-old Martin Anstee, a former police officer, who is receiving treatment in the Netherlands after working on the cruise ship.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.