90-Second Read: French evacuee from Hantavirus-hit ship tests positive, health minister says

A French national evacuated from a luxury cruise ship linked to a deadly Hantavirus outbreak tested positive for the virus, the French health minister said Monday. France on Monday reported its first case of Hantavirus when a French national who had been aboard a virus-linked ship tested positive for the disease, said French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist. Read more Hantavirus outbreak risk to public is 'absolutely low', WHO says The operation evacuated 94 people of 19 different nationalities on Sunday, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia announced on Tenerife, in Spain's Canary Islands. Four other French passengers from the ship tested negative, but will be re-tested, the minister added.

Health authorities said they have so far identified 22 Hantavirus contact cases in France. The operation to repatriate passengers of the cruise ship at the centre of a deadly Hantavirus outbreak continued into Monday, as US officials on Sunday said an American had tested positive for the virus. Spain on Monday said it took "all measures" to prevent Hantavirus spreading from evacuees on the cruise ship. No vaccines or specific treatments exist for Hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, where the ship departed in April.

But health officials have insisted that the risk for global public health is low and played down comparisons to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Spanish health ministry said the French patient "started to feel unwell during the flight and not while she was on the ship". 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. The only Hantavirus type that is transmissible between humans, the Andes virus, has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, fuelling international concern.

Officials said the group would be taken to a hospital near Liverpool for tests and about 72 hours of quarantine. But a top US health official said the 17 American passengers would not necessarily be quarantined at a specialised centre in the state of Nebraska. 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.