90-Second Read: Last passengers from Hantavirus-hit ship evacuated; American tests positive

US officials say 18 Americans are being monitored for symptoms, as WHO insists risk to public remains low. Three people, a Dutch couple and a German national, have died since the outbreak of the Hantavirus on the ship. Officials from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Monday that one of the 18 American passengers evacuated from the ship had tested positive in a biochemical unit in Nebraska. The two planes carried 28 evacuees from the MV Hondius, which had been docked in the Canary Islands, including six passengers and 19 crew members, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday.

The MV Hondius left Argentina, where Hantavirus is endemic, on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde. As of Monday, the WHO said there were seven confirmed cases of the virus, and two other suspected cases, one who died before ⁠being tested, and one on Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island where no tests had been available. The confirmed cases also include a French passenger, who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands on Sunday. The passengers, four from Australia, one from New Zealand, and one British resident of Australia, are expected to stay in a quarantine facility near the Eindhoven airbase before they are repatriated.

Their arrival caps a complex operation in which 94 people have been evacuated and repatriated to some 20 countries to enter a period of quarantine. It comes 41 days after the MV Hondius set off from southern Argentina and nine days after the first positive test result for the respiratory viral infection. The World Health Organization believes the first infection occurred before the start of the voyage, followed by transmission between people on board the vessel. Authorities have said that the risk to the public from the virus, which generally requires prolonged close contact with someone infected to spread, remains low.

The Hondius is now making its way from Tenerife to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where it will dock for disinfection. Still on board are 25 crew members and two medical staff, operator Oceanwide Expeditions said on Monday. Her condition was deteriorating, French Minister of Health Stephanie Rist said.