The French passenger, who was hospitalized in Paris, suffered from a serious illness causing life-threatening lung and heart problems.
PARIS, France – A French woman has contracted the deadly virus Hantavirus Passengers on a cruise ship are in critical condition and are receiving artificial lungs, a Paris hospital doctor caring for sick passengers said on Tuesday. outbreak has reached A total of 11 cases have been reported, 9 of which have been confirmed.
Three people die on cruise ship, including one Dutch couple Health officials believe they were first exposed to the virus while visiting South America.
Dr.
He said the woman was on life support, which pumps blood through artificial lungs, providing it with oxygen and returning it to the body. The hope is that the device will relieve enough pressure on the lungs and heart to give them time to recover. Lescure calls it “the final phase of supportive care.”
along with evacuation With all passengers and many crew members finished, the MV Hondius has now sailed back to the Netherlands, where it will be cleaned and disinfected.
The director-general of the World Health Organization said confirmed and suspected cases have only been reported among cruise ship passengers or crew.
“Currently, there is no indication that we are seeing a larger outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “But the situation may of course change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, we may see more cases in the coming weeks,” he added.
Spain’s health ministry said on Tuesday that the latest confirmed infection was a Spanish passenger who tested positive for hantavirus after being evacuated from the ship. The passenger is in isolation at a Madrid military hospital.
Health authorities say this is first hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship. Although there is no cure or vaccine for hantavirus, the World Health Organization says early detection and treatment can improve survival rates.
Argentina sends experts to investigate source of epidemic
Argentina’s health ministry said on Tuesday it would dispatch a team of scientific experts in the coming days to investigate the origins of the outbreak.
A Dutch couple has been identified by the World Health Organization as the first cruise ship passengers infected with hantavirus after spending months in Argentina and neighboring South American countries before boarding the ship. The couple later died.
Argentinian officials said the couple went on a bird-watching trip that included a stop at a garbage dump, where they may have been exposed to rodents carrying the infection. The health ministry said its team would investigate landfills and other places the couple visited where rats known to carry the virus were found, although local officials in the province where the cruise ship departed have Challenging the theory it started with.
Evacuation of MV Hondius completed
A total of 87 passengers and 35 crew members were escorted off the aircraft. Boat A carefully planned operation of people wearing full-body protective gear and respiratory masks ended on Monday night, arriving on the shores of Tenerife.
Two planes arrived in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven overnight, carrying Dutch nationals, passengers from Australia and New Zealand and crew from the Philippines. All have been quarantined, according to the Dutch government.
Ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said some crew members remained on board and sailed to the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.
Hantaviruses are usually spread through rodent feces and are not easily transmitted from person to person. but andes virus Outbreaks identified on cruise ships may in rare cases be able to spread from person to person. Symptoms (which may include fever, chills, and muscle aches) usually appear one to eight weeks after exposure.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recommended that returning travelers should quarantine at home or other facilities for 42 days. He added that the World Health Organization cannot enforce its guidance and that different countries may monitor asymptomatic travelers differently.
Dutch hospital staff quarantined
Twelve employees at a Dutch hospital where a passenger from the Hondius must be quarantined for six weeks due to improper handling of body fluids, Radboud University Medical Center said in a statement Monday night.
The hospital said the “risk of infection is low” but that it asked the dozen employees to quarantine as a “precautionary measure.”
Hospitals in the eastern city of Nijmegen last week admitted a passenger from an evacuation flight that landed in the Netherlands who tested positive for hantavirus.
The hospital said patients’ blood and urine should be handled “following stricter procedures.”
Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writers Mike Cord and Molly Quayle; Suman Naishadham in Madrid; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lauren Neergaard in Washington; Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.
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