A French woman who tested positive for hantavirus after she was evacuated from a cruise ship was told by doctors that her flu-like symptoms were probably just anxiety, a Spanish minister has said.
The woman’s condition deteriorated rapidly after her evacuation from the MV Hondius and she is now in a critical state in a Paris hospital, according to the World Health Organisation.
Three people – a Dutch couple and a German national – have died since the start of the outbreak on the ship, which is usually spread by wild rodents but can also be transmitted person-to-person in rare cases of close contact.
Spanish health minister Javier Padilla Bernaldez told The Guardian that her symptoms were not deemed to be hantavirus, as she had told medics that an episode of coughing she had suffered days before had disappeared. At least eleven cases have been confirmed.
She said that “what she was having at that moment was kind of like stress or anxiety or nervousness.”
Nearly 120 passengers and crew from 23 nations were evacuated from the luxury cruise ship after it docked in Tenerife, Spain, in an international operation involving military planes, quarantine protocols, and health workers in protective gear. Spanish authorities described the operation as “complex” and “unprecedented”.
There are at least 11 cases of hantavirus, with nine confirmed as the Andes strain, WHO said.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of WHO, said he expected more cases linked to the MV Hondius to surface because of the gap from when the first case was reported and when it was identified as hantavirus.
He said: “At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak, 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.”
At least 26 crew members and two health workers stayed aboard as the ship headed to Rotterdam for disinfection, carrying the body of a German passenger who died during the voyage.
Mr Padilla said doctors and the Spanish foreign health service who had assessed the French woman dismissed her symptoms as anxiety.
The woman was among five French passengers evacuated from the cruise ship in Tenerife on Sunday and later flown to a hospital in Paris.
French health minister Stephanie Rist said the woman started feeling seriously unwell on Sunday night and later tested positive for hantavirus.
“Unfortunately, her symptoms worsened overnight,” Ms Rist told France Inter radio.
She is currently receiving treatment in a specialised infectious diseases unit at a Paris hospital.
Spain and WHO stressed that the outbreak wasn’t like Covid, and emphasised that the overall risk to the public remained low.
Passengers from the ship are now isolating for 45 days in various countries such as the UK, US, France, and the Netherlands.
An American passenger tested positive for the Andes strain– the only hantavirus strain known to spread between humans – though officials said the result was not fully conclusive.
The cause of the outbreak is yet to be confirmed, but it’s thought to have originated in a birdwatching trip in Argentina involving the first infected passengers of the ship, a Dutch couple who later became the first casualties.
Meanwhile, French prime minister Sebastien Lecornu said the woman was now in a “very critical” condition after taking a chartered flight from Tenerife to Paris, prompting authorities to place all five passengers evacuated from the MV Hondius “immediately in strict isolation until further notice”.
The French nationals were among more than 90 tourists evacuated from the vessel on Sunday.
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