{"id":140572,"date":"2026-05-11T06:02:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/french-national-shows-symptoms-on-return-from-hantavirus-hit-ship\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T06:02:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:02:44","slug":"french-national-shows-symptoms-on-return-from-hantavirus-hit-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/french-national-shows-symptoms-on-return-from-hantavirus-hit-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"French national shows symptoms on return from hantavirus-hit ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

A passenger of a cruise ship that was struck by an outbreak of hantavirus<\/a> has shown symptoms of the disease while being repatriated to France, the country\u2019s prime minister has said.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9bastien Lecornu said the French national developed symptoms while on a chartered flight from Tenerife to Paris, and so all five evacuated from the MV Hondius had been \u201cimmediately placed in strict isolation until further notice\u201d.<\/p>\n

The French citizens are among more than 90 tourists to be ferried home from the Dutch vessel on Sunday, which anchored off the Canary Islands before dawn.<\/p>\n

Three passengers have died after travelling on the ship, two of whom were confirmed to have had the virus.<\/p>\n

After the French flight touched down at Le Bourget Airport, officials wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) could be seen meeting them on the tarmac. Ambulances then took them to the Bichat hospital in the French capital.<\/p>\n

There, they will be quarantined for 72 hours and given a full assessment, before being sent home to self-isolate for 45 days, France\u2019s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Fourteen Spanish nationals flown from Tenerife to Madrid now face mandatory quarantine at a military hospital in the Spanish capital.<\/p>\n

British nationals have been flown back to Manchester. None of the Britons have reported symptoms but they are being monitored, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said.<\/p>\n

A plane carrying 26 passengers and crew \u2013 including eight Dutch nationals \u2013 has arrived in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

A flight departed on Sunday for the US carrying 18 people \u2013 all of the American passengers from the cruise and one British national who resides in the US.<\/p>\n

One of the Americans began showing mild symptoms of hantavirus and another tested mildly positive for the Andes strain of the virus after being evacuated from the cruise ship, the US Department of Health and Human Services said.<\/p>\n

Both passengers were \u201ctravelling in the plane\u2019s biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution,\u201d HHS said.<\/p>\n

Flights for Turkish and Irish citizens were also scheduled on Sunday, while Spanish Health Minister M\u00f3nica Garc\u00eda said the final two evacuation flights would depart on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Six passengers are returning to Australia and another 18 will be flown to the Netherlands. Both planes are also taking passengers from other countries which did not send their own repatriation flights.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s Health Secretary Javier Padilla said more than 90 of the 150 passengers and crew of the Hondius will have been sent home by the end of Sunday. A flight to Australia is expected on Monday.<\/p>\n

The cruise ship dropped anchor in the port of Granadilla earlier on Sunday, and medical teams went aboard at around 07:00 local time (06:00 GMT).<\/p>\n

This began the carefully choreographed process of removing those aboard and repatriating them devised by the Spanish government and the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n

Passengers could be seen from afar wandering around on the deck of the ship, or at the windows, all in white medical face masks, as the first evacuations took place on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

Several sat socially distanced on the first evacuation boat, filming and taking photos as they approached land, where they were met by officials in white protective suits.<\/p>\n

While being couriered to the airport, some British passengers \u2013 clad in blue PPE \u2013 waved and gave thumbs up as they drove past the assembled media.<\/p>\n

The arrival of the Hondius was met by opposition from some, including the Canary Islands\u2019 regional president, who expressed concerns over the virus spreading to Tenerife.<\/p>\n

Hantaviruses are usually carried by rodents, but human transmission of the Andes strain \u2013 which the WHO believes was contracted by some of the ship\u2019s passengers while in South America \u2013 is possible.<\/p>\n

Symptoms can include fever, extreme fatigue, muscle aches, stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and shortness of breath.<\/p>\n

Helen Clark, co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR), told the BBC there were lessons to be learnt about how viral outbreaks on ships should be managed.<\/p>\n

\u201cPassengers disembarked and dispersed to the four winds when there had been a death of a potentially infectious pathogen on board,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When asked if the world was ready to deal with another pandemic, she said there was still work to be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not yet enough financing to support lower income countries to build capacities for early detection, surveillance, response,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She added \u201cthe direction is right if countries come together to make it possible to do far, far better than we did with Covid\u201d. The IPPR evaluated the global response to Covid -19.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A passenger of a cruise ship that was struck by an outbreak of hantavirus has shown symptoms of the disease while being repatriated to France, the country\u2019s prime minister has said. S\u00e9bastien Lecornu said the French national developed symptoms while on a chartered flight from Tenerife to Paris, and so all five evacuated from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}