90-Second Read: Where did the Hantavirus outbreak start, and where has it spread?

The US and France are the latest to confirm Hantavirus cases as evacuations from a cruise ship are under way. As passengers are being flown home for testing and monitoring, health officials are racing to determine where and how the outbreak may have started. However, local health officials in Ushuaia said this is unlikely, telling reporters that the area has not recorded a Hantavirus case since 1996. A United States citizen who was on the Hantavirus-hit MV Hondius cruise ship is the latest to test positive for the virus while a French traveller has developed symptoms as the ship is being evacuated and passengers are returning to their home countries. At least eight people who were on board the ship had earlier been confirmed or were suspected of having contracted.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was present to oversee the process and to reiterate that people on Tenerife as well as the general public were at low risk of contracting Hantavirus. At least 34 passengers and crew had already disembarked from the ship by May 2, the day the WHO first received reports of an outbreak of severe respiratory illnesses on the ship as it was docked off Cape Verde. Health officials are currently tracing the outbreak in Argentina, from which the ship departed. Hantavirus infects humans who breathe in air contaminated with virus particles from infected rodents' urine, droppings or saliva. It is not yet known where the initial contamination took place.

At least one of the 17 American passengers evacuated has tested positive for the virus but was not showing symptoms, US health officials said. Last week, Argentinian health officials were deployed to the site with plans to take samples of rats in the area of the landfill and examine them for Hantavirus. The last similar transmission of the Hantavirus from human to human was recorded in Chile in 2019, authorities added. Uruguay's Ministry of Public Health said last week that there is no risk of transmission associated with the couple in the country as their symptoms began several days after they left the country, meaning they were not symptomatic during their stay in Uruguay. Passengers on the MV Hondius anchored at Tenerife were evacuated and escorted to shore by officials.

It is not known if they were the first to contract Hantavirus, however. Hantavirus is endemic across most of Chile except in the country's far north. A plane carrying US passengers was due on Monday to arrive in Omaha, Nebraska, where they were to be quarantined. French Health Minister Stephanie Rist revealed on Sunday that one of five French passengers had developed symptoms on a flight home to France on Sunday. Six British army medics parachuted onto the remote South Atlantic British territory of Tristan da Cunha on Saturday, where one passenger had disembarked on April 14.