France’s health minister said on Thursday, May 14, that 26 people in France identified as close contacts of hantavirus cases linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship had tested negative for the illness. Dutch authorities said that all people who arrived in the Netherlands on evacuation flights from the ship this week have also tested negative. “As of today, all close contacts of a person who tested positive for hantavirus, present in France, have tested negative, without exception,” said Health Minister Stéphanie Rist on X.
Twenty-six people are in hospital isolation in France, including 22 identified as close contacts of a Dutch woman on the MV Hondius that was at the center of an international alert for the rare disease typically transmitted by rodents. French doctors are monitoring four others who were on the ship, while a fifth French passenger tested positive for hantavirus and is in serious condition in a French hospital.
Twenty-two of the individuals in France were on a flight from the Atlantic island of Saint Helena to Johannesburg, or on a Johannesburg-Amsterdam flight that a Dutch passenger was scheduled to take. The Dutch woman was taken off the flight and died in a South African hospital. The 26 individuals will be tested three times a week as a precautionary measure, Rist said.
Globally, three people from the Hondius have died, six are confirmed to have hantavirus, there is one probable case, and one US passenger had symptoms but recorded a negative test, according to a count from official figures. Health authorities have said there is a low risk to the wider public.
Meanwhile, the European Union said it would step up information-sharing among its 27 member states to better combat hantavirus. France on Tuesday called for “closer coordination” on EU health protocols.
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