MADRID – A Spaniard placed under quarantine after partaking in a cruise hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak has tested positive, the Spanish ministry of health said on May 25.
“The patient was transferred to a high-level isolation unit in the Gomez Ulla hospital, where he will remain hospitalised,” the ministry said in a statement.
“This does not change the level of the risk for the general population and does not change the measures of the current epidemiological response,” it said.
It is the second confirmed case of the hantavirus in Spain.
The hantavirus outbreak occurred on a Dutch-flagged ship MV Hondius that set off April 1 from Ushuaia, Argentina, taking in remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean before heading north to Cape Verde, then Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands, where remaining passengers were evacuated.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on May 23 that 12 suspected and confirmed cases have been reported to the UN agency, including three deaths, and that no deaths have been reported since May 2.
Spread by rodents, hantavirus is a rare virus for which no vaccines or specific treatments exist. AFP