French passenger of hantavirus cruise ship starts showing symptoms on evacuation flight, prime minister says - CBS News

Seventeen Americans and a dual British-U.S. citizen evacuated from the cruise ship hit with a deadly outbreak of hantavirus arrived in the U.S. early Monday.

One American on the repatriation flight "tested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus," the strain involved in this outbreak, and another began showing symptoms, the Department of Health and Human Services said Sunday night.

Both passengers were "travelling in the plane's biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution," HHS said. The passenger who tested positive was not experiencing symptoms, according to a statement from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Most taken to Nebraska quarantine and biocontainment units

The flight to the U.S. landed at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, and a convoy, ambulance and multiple buses took passengers early Monday to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where 16 will stay for monitoring.

Two other passengers were flown to Atlanta, where the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based, for further assessment and care, said the CDC's Brendan Jackson, acting director of the Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology.

Of the Nebraska group, 15 people were taken to the National Quarantine Unit at the medical center, while another person was taken to a biocontainment unit there, health officials said at a briefing Monday.

The person in the biocontainment unit, which provides hospital-based care, was "doing well" as of Monday morning and did not have any symptoms, according to Angela Hewlett, an infectious disease physician and the medical director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit.

The 15 people who went to the quarantine unit "were in good shape" and "in good spirits," said Michael Wadman, an emergency physician and the medical director of the quarantine unit. They were all asymptomatic as of Monday morning, Wadman said, and were being monitored in the unit, which is more like a hotel rather than a care space, he said.

Wadman described the transfer of the 15 people to the unit as smooth, safe and successful.

There have been at least 10 confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus linked to the outbreak on the ship, the MV Hondius, including three fatalities: A Dutch couple and a German woman. Patients involved in the hantavirus outbreak have tested positive for the Andes strain, which can be transmitted from person to person. Hantavirus is typically transmitted by rodents.

The details surrounding the arrivals came after France's prime minister said Sunday afternoon that a citizen of that country also began showing symptoms during a repatriation flight. All five passengers on that flight "were immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice," and will undergo testing, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on social media.

The country's health minister later told France Inter radio the woman tested positive for hantavirus and her condition has deteriorated.

A complex and careful disembarkation

The MV Hondius was carrying nearly 150 people from more than 15 countries, including 17 Americans, when it set sail earlier this week from Cape Verde to Granadilla, after Spain agreed to take the ship.

Passengers began disembarking Sunday morning from the ship after it docked in Spain's Canary Islands. They were carefully evacuated by nationality and placed on repatriation flights. Spanish nationals disembarked first, then boarded a plane for Madrid, where they were taken to a military hospital. French and British passengers also evacuated.

Oceanwide Expeditions, the ship's operator, said all passengers and a portion of the approximately 60 crew members evacuated the ship using launch boats that carry a maximum of five to 10 people each.

People were then checked for symptoms. Passengers and crew members had no contact with the local population on Tenerife before they were taken to their evacuation flights, authorities said. A video shared by Spain's defense ministry shows the inside of one repatriation flight, revealing surfaces wrapped in plastic and crew members wearing protective gear.

The operation in Tenerife was supervised by Spain's health and interior ministers as well as the World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.