90-Second Read: French woman was told by doctors Hantavirus symptoms were just anxiety

Javier Padilla Bernáldez said the woman, who had been travelling on the ship at the centre of a deadly Hantavirus outbreak, had been suffering flu-like symptoms but they appeared to be getting better and she did not have a fever. They were not thinking that these symptoms were compatible with Hantavirus. The US health department said one American national evacuated from the ship had tested positive for the Andes strain, the only Hantavirus strain that is transmissible between humans, and another had "mild symptoms". Speaking as the ship left Tenerife, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, thanked Spain for coming to the aid of those on the vessel and added that the French passenger was now in a "very critical" condition. The French woman was one of.

The French health minister, Stéphanie Rist, said the woman had started to feel very unwell on Sunday night and "tests came back positive". Padilla defended the approach, saying there were likely to be some cases without severe symptoms and that was why all passengers and crew were recommended to isolate for 45 days since they were last exposed, which has been agreed as 6 May. Padilla said passengers could not have been tested onboard the vessel because there were no rapid PCR tests for Hantavirus available. The MV Hondius left the dock in the Canary Island of Tenerife on Monday evening, after 120 people from 23 nations were repatriated over 48 hours in an operation described by Spanish authorities as "complex" and "unprecedented". Because what she was telling [them] was.

The World Health Organization later said the woman was in a "very critical" condition. The WHO and the Spanish government had reassured the public on Saturday night that all 149 passengers and crew were asymptomatic of the infection, which causes flu-like symptoms and can lead to respiratory failure. This was something the Spanish government had insisted would not happen, after the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, argued that docking the ship increased the possibility that rats carrying Hantavirus would spread to the land, putting local people at risk. But health officials have said the risk for global public health is low and have played down comparisons with the Covid-19 pandemic. Twenty-six crew and two health workers remained on the ship as it headed to Rotterdam.

Rist told France Inter radio: "Unfortunately, her symptoms worsened overnight." She is being treated in a specialised infectious diseases unit of a hospital in Paris. No vaccines or specific treatments exist for Hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, from where the ship departed in April. Both the WHO and the Spanish government said the positive was not strong enough to be conclusive and have not counted the US case in the official figures. The cause of the ship's outbreak is not yet known but it is thought to have been spread person to person and brought onboard the ship after a birdwatching trip in Argentina by a Dutch husband and wife who became the first fatalities. Health authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already left the.