Hantavirus, Rezza: 'Four Italians asymptomatic. Five French repatriated by medical flight

The MV Hondius cruise ship, on board which a hantavirus outbreak was detected, arrived this morning at the port of Granadilla de Abona, in the south of the Spanish island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. The World Health Organisation, the Spanish authorities and the cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said that no one on board the ship is currently showing symptoms of hantavirus.

More than 140 people were on board the boat that arrived off the coast of Tenerife, the largest of the Spanish Canary Islands, off the West African coast today. Three people have died since the outbreak began and five passengers who left the ship tested positive for the hantavirus. The ship has not docked, will remain at anchor and people will be transferred ashore in small boats. All those disembarking will be checked for symptoms and will only be allowed to leave the ship when evacuation flights are available to transport them to their destination. People of more than 20 different nationalities are currently on board. 'The whole operation is proceeding normally,' said the Spanish Minister of Health, Mónica García.

Transalpine media reported that five French passengers will be repatriated on a medical flight today and quarantined in hospital for 72 hours, the health and foreign affairs ministries announced on Sunday. One of them presented symptoms of the disease, announced the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, in a post on X. "One of them presented symptoms on board the plane during the return journey," the premier reported, adding that all five passengers will be placed "in strict isolation until further notice". "As of this evening," he added, "I will adopt a decree to allow isolation measures suitable for contact cases and capable of protecting the entire population.

Hantavirus is usually transmitted by infected rodents, most often through their urine, faeces and saliva. But experts confirmed that the variant of the virus detected on board the ship, the Andean hantavirus, was a rare strain that can be transmitted from human to human with an incubation period of up to six weeks.

Also back on the Hantavirus is epidemiologist and professor of Hygiene at San Raffaele in Milan,Giovanni Rezza, who says the decision to isolate the four residents in Italia is not worrying. The four people isolated in Italia 'are all asymptomatic, healthy and it seems that they did not have close and prolonged contact with the sick person, who was on board for only a few minutes. The measures are right, inspired by the utmost precaution. In general, the overall risk linked to the Hantavirus remains very low'. In an interview with La Repubblica, Rezza explains that it is very likely that there is no risk of another pandemic like Covid 'because pre-symptomatic transmission has not been demonstrated,' he notes, 'and furthermore, since the Hantavirus is very aggressive, the sick are easily identified and isolated. They are therefore unable to transmit the infection, which, by the way, is more difficult to pass from one person to another'.