One American has officially tested “mildly positive” for Hantavirus. The United States Department of Health and Human Services claimed that it was one of the 17 Americans being repatriated from a hantavirus-struck cruise ship had tested mildly positive.
Seven cases of the Andes hantavirus have now been confirmed among passengers on board the cruise ship, MV Hondius, the World Health Organization said.
Symptoms of Hantavirus can include fever, extreme fatigue, muscle aches, stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and shortness of breath, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Another potentially serious disease caused by hantaviruses is hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), primarily found in Europe and Asia. However, Seoul virus, a hantavirus that causes HFRS, is found worldwide, including in the United States.
Hantavirus Outbreak Kills 3 On A Cruise Ship
One U.S. citizen and one French national who were on board the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak have tested positive for the virus, according to a report by Yahoo News.
Dozens of passengers, including 17 American citizens, were evacuated from the MV Hondius on Sunday after it docked off the coast of Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, has previously said the first two cases of hantavirus were a Dutch couple who had traveled through Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay on a bird-watching trip. These two people traveled to places, “which included visits to sites where the species of rat known to carry the virus was present,” according to a report by The BBC. The WHO has stressed that the risk of a wider outbreak remains “absolutely low.”
Five French passengers have also been flown back to Paris, with one of those evacuees later testing positive and being hospitalized.
A Dutch flight on Monday brought back 18 passengers from the Netherlands and other nations. This follows a plane on Sunday carrying 26 passengers and crew members, including eight Dutch nationals, that arrived in the Netherlands.
Countries Are Rushing To Track Hantavirus