THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Spanish passenger evacuated from the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak has tested positive for the virus, Spain’s health ministry announced Tuesday. The outbreak has now reached 11 total cases, 9 of which have been confirmed.
Three people on the cruise died, including a Dutch couple that health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America.
The passenger with
the latest confirmed hantavirus case was in quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid. Other Spanish nationals taken from the cruise ship to the same hospital have all tested negative for the virus, the health ministry said.
With the evacuation of all passengers and many crew members completed, the MV Hondius is now sailing back to the Netherlands, where it will be cleaned and disinfected.
The director of the World Health Organization, who was in Madrid, said confirmed and suspected cases have only been reported among the cruise ship's passengers or crew.
“At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general. He added: “But of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks.”
Meanwhile, a dozen staff members at a Dutch hospital where a hantavirus patient is being treated were told to quarantine after incorrectly handling bodily fluids.
A French woman evacuated from the stricken ship and taken to a Paris hospital remained in intensive care in stable condition, according to the French government.
Health authorities say it’s the first hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship. While there is no cure or vaccine for hantavirus, the WHO says early detection and treatment improves survival rates.
Argentina’s health ministry said Tuesday a team of scientific experts will be dispatched in the coming days to investigate the origin of outbreak.
A Dutch couple, identified by the WHO as the first cruise passengers infected with hantavirus, spent several months in Argentina and neighboring South American countries before boarding the cruise ship. The husband and wife later died.
Argentine officials have said the couple took a bird-watching tour that included a stop at a garbage dump where they may have been exposed to rodents carrying the infection. The health ministry said its team will investigate the landfill and other locations the couple visited where rats known to carry the virus are found.
A total of 87 passengers and 35 crew were escorted from the ship to shore in Tenerife by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks in a carefully choreographed effort that ended Monday night.
Two aircraft arrived in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven overnight carrying Dutch nationals as well as passengers from Australia and New Zealand and crew members from the Philippines. All were placed into quarantine, according to the Dutch government.
Some crew stayed aboard the ship and set course for the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, said ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions.
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 — which can include fever, chills and muscle aches — usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
WHO chief Tedros has advised that returning passengers should stay in quarantine, either in their homes or in other facilities, for 42 days. He added that WHO cannot enforce its guidance, and that different countries may handle the monitoring of passengers without symptoms in different ways.
Twelve employees at a Dutch hospital where a passenger from the Hondius is being treated have to quarantine for six weeks after improperly handling bodily fluids, Radboud University Medical Center said in a statement Monday night.
The “risk of infection is low” the hospital said, but was requiring the dozen employees to go into preventive quarantine as a “precaution.”
The hospital in the eastern city of Nijmegen received a passenger last week from one of the evacuation flights that landed in the Netherlands and the person has since tested positive for hantavirus.
Blood and urine from the patient should have been handled “according to a stricter procedure,” the hospital said.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the WHO says nine hantavirus cases have been confirmed worldwide. Two suspected cases have been reported but not confirmed. ___
Bynum reported from Savananh, Georgia. Associated Press writers Suman Naishadham in Madrid; Molly Quell in The Hague, Netherland; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.
