Hantavirus, negative the Englishman quarantined in Milan. Argentinean tourist tested in Messina

In addition, a test for Hantavirus was carried out in the evening on an Argentinian tourist, hospitalised in Messina for pneumonia. This was announced by the Ministry of Health. The woman had left an endemic area on 30 April and arrived in Italia on a Buenos Aires-Rome flight.

The sample relating to the tourist was transported by the Nas to the Spallanzani in Rome where it will be analysed together with the sample taken from the 25-year-old Calabrian man in fiduciary isolation.

The young Italian seafarer Federico Amaretti, 25 years old, living in Villa San Giovanni, Calabria, is in quarantine. 

The passenger was on the KLM flight where she had boarded on 25 April 2026, albeit for a short time because she was dropped off immediately, in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Dutch woman passenger on the ship who later died.

The flight was KL592 from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on 25 April.

Amaretti's biological samples arrived at Inmi Spallanzani in Rome for the necessary clinical examinations to decide whether he is positive or not;

The Ministry of Health circular, signed last night 11 May, clarifies that, 'even in the absence of a known clear epidemiological link with the Mv Hondius outbreak, or with confirmed/probable cases of Andes virus infection in endemic areas, the performance of specific diagnostic investigations in patients with a compatible clinical picture, or a clinical picture that cannot be otherwise explained and a negative result to routine microbiological investigations, may be considered, after careful infectivological evaluation.

In this case, the doctor on call at the Inmi Spallanzani can be contacted through the switchboard 06.551701 in cooperation with the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Iss)'.

This approach is aimed at 'facilitating the early identification of any sporadic or secondary cases and ensuring the timely activation of planned public health measures,' the circular states.

The seafarer from Torre del Greco (Naples) who was placed under a fiduciary quarantine by decision of the mayor of the Vesuvian city, Luigi Mennella, and the local health authority is fine.

This was announced by Asl Napoli 3 Sud through the director of the health authority's prevention department, Carmine Carbone. Carbone spoke today on Channel 9's 'Campania 24' television programme, explaining howthe 24-year-old is subjected to daily checks and constant monitoring regarding his state of health.

In the case of the seafarer from Torre del Greco,also like Federico Amaretti, slight contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who later died in a Johannesburg hospital (they were boarding the same plane bound for Amsterdam, a plane from which the woman was taken off by the staff after a few minutes and before take-off due to her poor health).

No swabs: 'We have never done any,' adds Carbone, 'not least because this type of check is triggered at the request of national and international authorities, which so far, in the presence of a clinical picture where no particular symptoms are recorded, have not deemed it necessary to do so.

Finally, some aspects related to sanitary precautions addressed to the population: 'Given that the changing climatic conditions may lead to greater contact between humans and rodents, we invite citizens to respect the rules related to the hygiene of our environments, such as correct waste collection and constant attention to removing weeds'.

Meanwhile, the last plane carrying passengers and crew evacuated from the cruise ship Mv Hondius, where an outbreak of hantavirus had been detected, also landed in the last few hours in Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

The two aircraft from the Spanish Canary Islands carried a total of 28 people, according to the Dutch Foreign Ministry.

On board the first plane were six Hondius passengers (four Australians, one New Zealander and a British citizen living in Australia), who will be accommodated in a quarantine centre near the airport before returning to Australia.

They wore only masks and carried large white bags with their personal belongings.

The Mv Hondius left the Spanish island of Tenerife yesterday bound for Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where it will dock to be disinfected. The arrival is scheduled for Sunday 17 May.

There are still 25 crew members and two medical personnel on board; the ship is also carrying the body of a German passenger who died during the cruise.

A dozen employees of the University Medical Centre Nijmegen will undergo a precautionary quarantine for six weeks after a possible exposure to the Hantavirus.

This was stated by the Radboudumc hospital quoted by the Dutch media, explaining that workers did not follow the specific protocol in handling the blood and urine of a patient who had been hospitalised since 6 May because he tested positive for the viral infection after travelling on the cruise ship Hondius.

Of the people who were on board the ship, four are under observation in Italia, in Veneto, Tuscany, Campania and Calabria.
"Currently there is no alarm, we are not facing a new Covid. I want to reiterate this firmly. In Italia there are no positive cases'. The hantavirus is 'a virus that we already know about, so it is not appearing now in the medical health world.

Certainly there is a more aggressive variant, which is the American variant, which affects the lungs and is more lethal. But the fundamental difference with Covid is that it has a low contagiousness'. Thus Mara Campitiello, head of the Department of Prevention, Research and Health Emergencies at the Ministry of Health, speaking this morning on Rtl 125.

'Currently in Italia,' Campitiello recalled, 'there are4 passengers in active surveillance. When we were informed by the Netherlands that 4 passengers were in Italia, of whom 2 with Italian nationality and 2 foreigners, and they were on the flight where the other passenger who died of the antivirus boarded for a few minutes and then immediately got off, the Ministry of Health immediately contacted them. I myself contacted them on their mobile phones, made sure they had no symptoms, and the next day, having sent the information to the regions, they were taken in charge by the relevant regions, which we recall are: Campania, Calabria, Veneto and Tuscany.

They are currently under active health surveillance and in fiduciary isolation, which is,' Campitiello points out, 'only as a precautionary measure because they do not currently show any symptoms'.

There are 338 cases of hantavirus currently documented worldwide, according to the HantavirusLIve platform, which publishes data on the spread of all such viruses, including the Andes hantavirus.

There are 145 under observation in 70 countries. However, the map, fed by official reports from all over the world, is missing data from China, where hantaviruses are widespread.

According to estimates by the Rare Diseases Observatory of the Istituto Superiore di Santà, in East Asia, especially in China and South Korea, haemorrhagic fever with kidney syndrome caused by hantaviruses that are transmitted directly from animals to humans continue to cause thousands of cases every year, although a progressive reduction has been observed in recent years.

France: eight people at risk of hantavirus hospitalised or being hospitalised

The eight people at risk of Hantavirus in France are already ''admitted'' to hospital or ''in the process'' of being admitted, according to the Paris government's strict new regulations, according to French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist, speaking before members of the Assemblée Nationale.

All took the 25 April flight, also KLM, from St Helena to Johannesburg with the sick passenger.

Rist, speaking at the National Assembly, stated that he was 'not sure that the virus has not yet mutated'. "There are aspects that we do not know", "we still do not have the complete sequencing of the virus. 

We cannot state with certainty that this virus has not yet mutated,' he said, according to French broadcaster BfmTv.

The Frenchwoman contaminated by the hantavirus and who returned to France two days ago to the public hospital Bichat (XVIII arrondissement) in Paris with the first symptomsis still 'in serious condition' hospitalised in intensive care. This was stated by the Minister of Health, Stéphanie Rist.

The woman fpresented a severe form of the disease that caused her life-threatening pulmonary and cardiac problems. This was reported by Dr Xavier Lescure, an infectious disease specialist at the French hospital Bichat. He added that the woman is connected to a life support device that pumps blood through an artificial lung, supplying her with oxygen and pumping it back into her body. The hope is that the device will relieve enough pressure on her lungs and heart to allow them time to recover. Lescure called it 'the final phase of supportive care'.