At least 23 passengers from the hantavirus-infected cruise ship MV Hondius have already returned home, including to the US, without knowing they might have been exposed to the deadly virus — and one of them has now tested positive.
The group disembarked when the vessel stopped at Saint Helena, a tiny island in the South Atlantic, on April 23, according to a passenger who remains on board. “There are 23 people wandering around there, and until three days ago, no one had contacted them,” the passenger told Spanish newspaper El Pais. “The Australian went back to Australia, the one from Taiwan to Taiwan, the Americans to all corners of North America.”
A Swiss man who had returned home with his wife tested positive for hantavirus on Wednesday, authorities said. He had initially tested negative after being taken to a Zurich hospital, but the virus can lie dormant for up to eight weeks.
The WHO said the ship’s operator had emailed departed passengers about the outbreak, but the passenger called the efforts “too little, too late.”
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