American citizen tests positive for hantavirus
Passengers evacuated from the cruise ship began flying home aboard military and government planes on Sunday after the vessel anchored in the Canary Islands.
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GRANADILLA DE ABONA, Spain: One of 17 American citizens being repatriated from a hantavirus-hit cruise ship has tested mildly positive for the virus, the US health department said on Sunday (May 10).
"One passenger currently has mild symptoms and another passenger tested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus," the Department of Health and Human Services said.
Both passengers are currently travelling in the plane's biocontainment units "out of an abundance of caution", it said.
The US passengers evacuated from the Spanish Canary Islands, where the ship made a stop, will be taken to a specialised centre in the rural state of Nebraska. The person with mild symptoms will be taken to a second centre.
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Upon arrival, "each person will undergo clinical assessment and receive appropriate care and support based on their condition", the department said.
Passengers evacuated from the cruise ship began flying home aboard military and government planes on Sunday after the vessel anchored in the Canary Islands.
A French traveller developed symptoms of the pathogen aboard their separate aircraft.
A total of 94 people of 19 different nationalities were evacuated on Sunday, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia announced on the island of Tenerife after what she called a "pretty intense" day.
Spanish officials said the evacuation of most of the ship's nearly 150 passengers and crew, which include 23 nationalities, would continue until the final repatriation flights to Australia and the Netherlands on Monday afternoon.
The ship will refuel in the morning and is expected to depart for the Netherlands with around 30 crew at 7pm on Monday (2am, Tuesday, Singapore time).
Three passengers from the MV Hondius - a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman - have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents.
No vaccines or specific treatments exist for hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, where the ship departed in April.
But health officials have stressed that the risk for global public health is low and played down comparisons to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Sunday, passengers wearing blue medical suits began disembarking the Dutch-flagged vessel onto smaller boats to reach the small industrial port of Granadilla on Tenerife, AFP journalists saw.
The evacuees then boarded Spanish army buses and travelled to Tenerife South airport in a convoy, with a protective board separating the driver from the passengers.
The evacuees changed into new protective equipment before boarding their repatriation flights.
"Everything is going well," French evacuee Roland Seitre told AFP just before taking off, saying "everyone was great" during the disembarkation.
RACE AGAINST TIME
A plane arrived in the Netherlands with dozens of people, including Belgian, Greek, German, Guatemalan and Argentine citizens, while flights for Canadian, Turkish, British, Irish and US nationals also left.
Canary Islands authorities have warned that the operation must be completed by Monday, when adverse weather conditions will force the ship to leave.
The Atlantic archipelago's regional government has consistently resisted taking in the ship, which was only authorised to anchor offshore instead of docking in the port when it arrived early on Sunday morning.
The central government has insisted there will be no contact with the population in Tenerife.
The World Health Organization recommends a 42-day quarantine and "active follow-up", including daily checks for symptoms such as fever, the UN body's epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in Geneva.
Greece's health ministry said a Greek male evacuee would spend 45 days in mandatory hospital quarantine in Athens, while 14 Spanish citizens will also isolate at a military hospital in Madrid.
But a top US health official said American passengers will not necessarily be quarantined at a specialised centre in the state of Nebraska.
Depending on the estimated risk, passengers can choose to go home "without exposing other people on the way", said Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was on Tenerife to help supervise the evacuations, said that the policy "may have risks".
INTERNATIONAL CONCERN
The only hantavirus type that is transmissible between humans - the Andes virus - has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, fuelling international concern.
The WHO said Friday it had confirmed six cases out of eight suspected ones.
The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina on Apr 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde, where three infected people had been evacuated to Europe earlier in the week.
The WHO believes the first infection occurred before the start of the expedition, followed by transmission between humans onboard the vessel.
But Argentine provincial health official Juan Petrina has said there was an "almost zero chance" the Dutch man linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia based on the virus's weeks-long incubation period, among other factors.
Health authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already disembarked and anyone who may have come into contact with them.
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