Hantavirus cruise passenger told symptoms were ‘just anxiety’ before positive test

Spanish doctors told a woman who tested positive for hantavirus that her symptoms were ‘probably just anxiety’.

The French national contracted the rare disease after being evacuated from the MV Hondius, which docked in Tenerife on Sunday.

But doctors from the Spanish foreign health service initially shrugged off her symptoms and attributed them to stress or anxiety, Spain’s health minister said.

Javier Padilla Bernáldez was quoted by The Guardian as saying: ‘They were not thinking that these symptoms were compatible with hantavirus.

‘Why? Because what she was telling [them] was [that she had] an episode of coughing some days ago that had disappeared, and what she was having at that moment was kind of like stress or anxiety or nervousness.

‘So it was not catalogued [as hantavirus].’

The World Health Organisation has now said the woman was in ‘very critical’ condition.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control told Metro that health checks on board were conducted by medical doctors on the ship.

An epidemiologist – someone who specialises in the spread of disease -was present on the ship but did not carry out clinical examinations of passengers.

Three people have died in the nearly six weeks since the MV Hondius left Argentina for remote islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

Seven cases of the condition have been confirmed, with more suspected.

But WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated to reporters this morning that there is ‘no sign’ a hantavirus pandemic is on the cards.

However, he cautioned that it is likely there will be more cases, given that symptoms can sometimes take up to eight weeks to appear.

‘While they were still on the ship, even if they were taking some preventive measures…. we would expect more cases,’ he added.

WHO defines a pandemic as ‘the worldwide spread of a new disease’.

What is hantavirus?

Hantavirus, sometimes called the ‘rat virus’, is a rare family of pathogens carried by rodents – there is no vaccine or cure.

The virus spreads through contact with the faeces, urine and saliva of infected rodents.

Early symptoms can be easily mistaken for the flu, such as fever, chills or body aches, but can escalate to heart or lung failure.

At the centre of the cruise outbreak is the Andes strain, which is endemic to South America, including Argentina, where the ship departed on April 1.

Dr Stathis Giotis, a lecturer in life sciences at the University of Essex, told Metro that the Andes hantavirus is the only known strain that can be spread from human to human, though cases of this are few and far between.

‘It is clearly a serious situation for those directly affected and it deserves careful public health follow-up, but there is no evidence at present that this represents a broader epidemic threat,’ he said.

People who may get in contact with rat droppings, like agricultural workers or people simply cleaning their sheds, are at high risk.

Meanwhile, 12 Dutch hospital workers at the Radboud University Medical Center (Radboudumc) have been quarantined over fears they may have been infected.

The staff did not follow strict protocol when taking blood from a hantavirus patient evacuated from the ship, the hospital said yesterday.

They also did not properly dispose of the patient’s urine. Affected team members will now observe a six-week quarantine.

Cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said yesterday evening that 87 guests and 35 crew have been flown back home so far after the ship docked at the weekend.

This includes 20 British holidaymakers now isolating at a Merseyside hospital.

A total of 27 people, mostly workers or medical professionals, are still on board the cruise liner.

The ship is now on its way to Rotterdam in the Netherlands from the Canary Islands.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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