Summary The passenger was among five French people who were on the ship. The four other passengers tested negative but will be re-tested, Health Minister Stephanie Rist said on Monday
PARIS (Reuters) – A French passenger who was on a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive for the virus and her condition is deteriorating, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said on Monday.
The passenger was among five French people who were on the ship. The four other passengers tested negative but will be re-tested, she told France Inter radio, adding that so far French authorities have traced 22 contact cases.
"What is key, is to act at the start and break the virus transmission chains. This is what we are doing with the Prime Minister, notably with a decree that came out today that will allow us to strengthen isolation measures for contact cases and to protect the population," she said.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu will hold a meeting on the hantavirus crisis later today.
Asked if France had enough masks and tests to cope with a potential crisis, Rist said: "Yes, France is ready."
ONE AMERICAN ‘MILDLY POSITIVE’
The US Department of Health and Human Services said on Sunday that one of the 17 Americans being repatriated from a hantavirus-struck luxury cruise ship has tested mildly positive for the Andes strain of the virus while a second has mild symptoms.
All the US citizens are being airlifted to the United States, and the two passengers with symptoms are traveling in the plane's biocontainment units, HHS added. The second symptomatic passenger has not yet been confirmed as having the virus.
Hantaviruses are a group of viruses that are usually spread by rodents but in rare cases can be transmitted person to person. Health authorities have said the risk of the virus spreading is low.
The US State Department's airlift will transport passengers to the ASPR Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center (RESPTC) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, and the passenger with mild symptoms will be taken to a second RESPTC, the HHS said.
On arrival at the facilities, each individual will undergo clinical assessment and receive care based on their condition, HHS added.
Nebraska Medicine said its Biocontainment Unit has been activated ahead of the passengers’ arrival in Omaha, adding that one individual who tested positive but remains asymptomatic will be transferred to the unit for monitoring, while others will undergo assessment at the National Quarantine Unit.
