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

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Amara Mensah

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Published May 12, 2026

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This is a simplified summary of outside reporting. Hantavirus Now did not independently report the original story. Read the original source for full details.This is a simplified summary of outside reporting. Hantavirus Now did not independently report the original story. Read the original source for full details.

US officials say 18 Americans are being monitored for symptoms, as WHO insists risk to public remains low. US officials say 18 Americans are being quarantined and monitored for symptoms, as WHO insists risk to public remains low. 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. Three people, a Dutch couple and a German national, have died since the outbreak of the Hantavirus on the ship.

We have this under control, and we're not worried about it." President Donald Trump, when asked about his administration's handling of the Hantavirus outbreak, said he thought it had been "fine". The MV Hondius left Argentina, where Hantavirus is endemic, on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde. 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. The officials said the infected person was being monitored along with 15 others at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, while two others, a couple.

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 strain involved, known as the Andes virus, is typically spread by rodents and is the only variant of Hantavirus capable of limited person-to-person transmission. The World Health Organization's director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at the port of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, sought to reassure the passengers and the public on Monday, saying that "there is nothing to fear. Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr expressed confidence in the US response to reporters at the.

This is not another COVID." He said the WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers. 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. We had a CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] team at Tenerife [Spain]. 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.

Source reference

Original reporting

Based on reporting from Al Jazeera. Read the original source for full details.

Source published May 11, 11:01 PM EDT. Hantavirus Now reviewed reporting from Al Jazeera and summarized the key points below.

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