WHO: No sign of further spread of hantavirus from cruise ship outbreak

May 12 (UPI) -- The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it did not believe a deadly hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship that killed three people and infected at least nine others would turn into a more widespread flare-up.

Speaking at a news briefing in Madrid, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there was "no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak."

However, Ghebreyesus warned the joint briefing with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that the work to deal with the outbreak from the ship was not over and that the long incubation period of the virus meant more infections could surface over the next several weeks.

Sanchez hailed as "a success" the evacuation operation, which saw more than 120 passengers from 12 countries around the world flown out of Tenerife on Sunday and Monday after the MV Hondius docked there.

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The operation had met with local opposition from Tenerife residents but Ghebreyesus thanked Sanchez not only for meeting Spain's "legal obligations under international law," but showing moral leadership.

Ghebreyesus said that while he understood the concerns of the people of the Canary Islands, it would have been "inhumane" not to allow the passengers from the Hondius to come ashore after many weeks isolated at sea.

Sanchez's comments came as Spain's health ministry confirmed a passenger, one of a group quarantined in Madrid's Gomez Ulla Central Defense Hospital, as the 11th confirmed case.

"Yesterday, the patient presented with low-grade fever and mild respiratory symptoms; however, they are currently stable with no evident clinical deterioration," said the ministry.

Two flights with 28 passengers and crew touched down on Tuesday in the Netherlands where 12 staff members of a hospital were in quarantine after potential exposure to the virus after treating one of the passengers evacuated earlier.

The hospital in Nijmegen, 65 miles southeast of Amsterdam, said the medics were being quarantined as a precaution because the patient's blood and urine samples had been handled without adhering to best infection prevention and control practices.

Eighteen Americans who returned to the United States are receiving treatment in quarantine, the Department of Health and Human Services said Monday. Two of those patients have tested positive.

British health officials said Tuesday that clinical assessments and testing of 20 passengers were "well underway" at a former COVID hospital in the northwest of England where they were on day two of a three-day quarantine.

Upon discharge from the hospital, which was never occupied during the pandemic, passengers -- 18 Britons, a German citizen and a Japanese national -- will be asked to self-isolate for up to 45 days.

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President Donald Trump delivers remarks at an event he is hosting for a group that includes Gold Star Mothers and Angel Mothers in honor of Mother's Day in the Rose Garden of the White House on Friday. Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo