{"id":6591,"date":"2026-05-11T11:35:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T11:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/two-more-cruise-ship-passengers-test-positive-for-hantavirus\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T11:35:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T11:35:29","slug":"two-more-cruise-ship-passengers-test-positive-for-hantavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/two-more-cruise-ship-passengers-test-positive-for-hantavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Two more cruise ship passengers test positive for hantavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>One French passenger and one from the US test positive after being evacuated from the vessel in the Canary Islands.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>A French woman and an American man have tested positive for hantavirus infections as countries around the world repatriate passengers from a cruise ship hit by a deadly outbreak.<\/p>\n<p>French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said on Monday that a French passenger who was on the MV Hondius cruise ship tested positive for the virus and her condition was deteriorating, the Reuters news agency reported.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 3 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/features\/2026\/5\/11\/risks-and-rewards-in-france-kenya-partnership\">Kenya hosts France\u2019s Macron: Why the relationship matters to both<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/11\/philippine-congress-poised-to-impeach-vice-president-sara-duterte\">Philippine Congress impeaches VP Sara Duterte for second time<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/11\/uks-keir-starmer-faces-likely-challenge-following-labours-election-defeat\">UK\u2019s Keir Starmer battles for political survival after election defeat<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>\u201cWhat is key is to act at \u2060the start and break \u2060the virus transmission chains,\u201d Rist told France Inter radio, pointing to the \u201cdecree \u2060that came out today that will allow us to \u2060strengthen isolation measures for \u2060contact cases and to protect the population\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Another four French passengers have so far tested negative, and authorities have identified 22 contact cases.<\/p>\n<p>The US Department of Health and Human Services <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HHSGov\/status\/2053656580118216985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> on Sunday that an American on a repatriation flight had tested \u201cmildly positive\u201d for the virus and another had mild symptoms. Both were travelling \u201cin the plane\u2019s biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution\u201d and all 17 MV Hondius passengers on board would undergo clinical assessment upon arrival in the US.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4559626\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4559626\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AFP__20260510__B2DN2ZL__v2__HighRes__TopshotSpainHealthHantavirusIllnessTourism-1778397136.jpg?w=770&#038;resize=770%2C512&#038;quality=80\" alt=\"The Dutch flagged hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius arrives to the industrial port of Granadilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands\" fetchpriority=\"low\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4559626\">The Dutch-flagged, hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius arrives at the port of Granadilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife in Spain\u2019s Canary Islands [File: Jorge Guerrero\/AFP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The two new cases bring the total number of confirmed cases to 10. The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/emergencies\/disease-outbreak-news\/item\/2026-DON600\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confirmed<\/a> two deaths and one probable death, and as of Friday, four people were hospitalised with one in intensive care in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The MV Hondius was anchored near the Canary Island of Tenerife after being stranded for weeks following an outbreak of the hantavirus on the luxury cruise ship. Health authorities have been locating and monitoring passengers who disembarked from the ship before the outbreak was identified.<\/p>\n<p>Investigations into the source of the outbreak are ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>The evacuation \u2060of passengers from the cruise ship will be completed on Monday with flights to Australia and the Netherlands, Spain\u2019s health minister said.<\/p>\n<p>One flight to Australia will evacuate six passengers \u2060from Tenerife and another to the Netherlands will take 18 passengers. Both flights are to also carry passengers from other countries that did not send their own repatriation flights, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Hantaviruses can cause severe respiratory illness and are usually spread by rodents but can also, in more rare cases, be transmitted between people. Symptoms can begin between one and eight weeks after exposure and include headaches, fever, chills, gastrointestinal issues and respiratory distress.<\/p>\n<p>The fatality rate of the Andes strain of the hantavirus, identified in the ship\u2019s outbreak, can reach 40 to 50 percent, particularly among elderly people.<\/p>\n<p>The WHO has recommended a quarantine of 42 days for the cruise passengers. Experts are stressing the need for calm, noting that the virus is far less contagious than COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>Robin May, chief scientific officer at the United Kingdom Health Security Agency, said the risk to the public was \u201cextremely low\u201d, the Press Association news agency reported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One French passenger and one from the US test positive after being evacuated from the vessel in the Canary Islands. A French woman and an American man have tested positive for hantavirus infections as countries around the world repatriate passengers from a cruise ship hit by a deadly outbreak. French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said &#8230; <a title=\"Two more cruise ship passengers test positive for hantavirus\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/two-more-cruise-ship-passengers-test-positive-for-hantavirus\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Two more cruise ship passengers test positive for hantavirus\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}