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The Ministry of Health of Spain confirmed this Tuesday that the passenger of the cruise ship MV Hondius isolated at the Central Defense Hospital Gómez Ulla, in Madrid, tested positive for hantavirus, becoming the first confirmed case in Spain linked to the outbreak of the MV Hondius.
The department announced through its official account that "the patient who tested positive provisionally yesterday has been confirmed as positive for hantavirus," and clarified that "the definitive tests have confirmed a total of 13 negative results" among the other Spaniards who were being monitored at the same center.
The patient, a man traveling as a passenger —not as crew—, developed a low-grade fever and mild respiratory symptoms during the night on Tuesday, although Health authorities emphasized that "he is currently stable and has shown no evident clinical deterioration."
The patient remains isolated in the High-Level Isolation and Treatment Unit (UATAN) of Gómez Ulla, on the 22nd floor, which operates under negative pressure and follows stringent biological safety protocols established after the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
The quarantine of the 14 Spaniards in that hospital began on May 6 and may be extended for a maximum of 42 days—the virus's maximum incubation period—which could place its possible end on June 17.
The Spanish case raises the confirmed positive cases linked to the cruise to nine, within a total of 11 cases recorded by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the ECDC as of this Tuesday, including two probable cases, three fatalities, and the presence of the outbreak in at least seven countries: the Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States.
France confirmed on Monday a positive case among its five repatriates: a woman who developed symptoms during the flight back and was admitted to intensive care in Paris, where her condition was critical on Tuesday.
In the United States, 17 passengers were transported from the Canary Islands to Nebraska on Monday; at least one tested positive without symptoms and another developed symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an alert for physicians through their Health Alert Network.
In the Netherlands, two passengers from the Hondius tested positive, and 12 health workers from Radboudumc Hospital in Nijmegen were put in quarantine following a protocol error while treating one of the infected individuals.
The outbreak originated on board the MV Hondius, a Dutch-flagged expedition cruise operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, which set sail from Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 with 88 passengers and 59 crew members from 23 nationalities on a 46-day itinerary to Antarctica and the South Atlantic.
The causative agent is the Andes virus, the only strain among more than 20 known variants of hantavirus with documented transmission between people, although only in close and prolonged contacts. The WHO has dismissed the risk of a pandemic: its director of Preparedness and Prevention of Epidemics, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, was categorical in this regard: "The risk to the general population is low. This is not a virus that spreads like the flu or COVID."
The MV Hondius departed from the Port of Granadilla in Tenerife, heading to Rotterdam, where it will undergo a disinfection process. The WHO described the incident as the first documented hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in history.
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