Quarantined Spanish national evacuated from hantavirus cruise ship tests positive

A SPANIARD PLACED under quarantine after partaking in a cruise hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak has tested positive, the Spanish health ministry said on Monday.

“The patient was transferred to a high-level isolation unit in the Gomez Ulla hospital, where he will remain hospitalised,” the ministry said in a statement.

“This does not change the level of the risk for the general population and does not change the measures of the current epidemiological response,” it said.

It is the second confirmed case of hantavirus in Spain. Twelve other cases have been confirmed among other nationalities who were on the ship.

There were nearly 150 people on board in total.

The hantavirus outbreak occurred on a Dutch-flagged ship, MV Hondius, that set off 1 April from Ushuaia, Argentina, taking in remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean before heading north to Cape Verde, then Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands, where the remaining passengers were evacuated.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that 12 suspected and confirmed cases have been reported to the UN agency, including three deaths, and that no deaths have been reported since 2 May.

Spread by rodents, hantavirus is a rare virus for which no vaccines or specific treatments exist.

Irish passengers

Two Irish people who were on board the cruise ship are quarantining in Ireland after landing home on 11 May.

They’ll stay in an HSE-run facility, where they’ll be monitored.

Day zero of their quarantine was 6 May. They must remain quarantined for 42 days, or five weeks, from that date.

Professor Mary Horgan, Interim Chief Medical Officer, previously said that Irish nationals do not have any symptoms of the virus.

She said that they will be offered mental health support during this time.

With additional reporting by Mairead Maguire