An American national on a repatriation flight has tested positive for hantavirus while another has mild symptoms after leaving a cruise ship hit by a deadly outbreak of the virus, the US health department has said, the BBC reports.
An American national on a repatriation flight has tested positive for hantavirus while another has mild symptoms after leaving a cruise ship hit by a deadly outbreak of the virus, the US health department has said.
Both passengers who arrived back in the US on the government charter plane travelled in “biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution”, the statement said.
All 17 US citizens on the flight will now be further screened at a medical facility in Nebraska.
They are among more than 90 passengers of the MV Hondius ship, now docked in Spain’s Canary Islands, who are being repatriated. Officials say the risk of a major outbreak is very low.
Three passengers – a Dutch couple and a German woman – have died after travelling on the vessel. Two of them are confirmed to have had the virus.
Hantaviruses are usually carried by rodents, but human transmission of the Andes strain – which the World Health Organization (WHO) believes was contracted by some of the Dutch ship’s passengers while in South America – is possible.
