Officials: Canadian Becomes First Positive Hantavirus Case in North America After Cruise Ship Outbreak

A Canadian is the first person in North America to have tested positive for the hantavirus linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, authorities said.

Canada’s health officials confirmed Sunday that one person in a group of four Canadians received a “presumptive positive” test result after returning from the ship, according to People.

Another person traveling with the individual who tested positive received a negative result. The pair, who are in their 70s, are currently at a hospital in Victoria.

“The other two Canadians aboard the cruise ship are a person in their 70s from Vancouver Island and a British Columbia person in their 50s who lives abroad. All four people are now in isolation,” the outlet continued.

In regard to the positive case, British Columbia’s health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said the result came back on Friday, CBC reported Saturday.

Henry said officials had planned for this kind of situation.

“I know news like this can be very concerning and can cause us to think about what we went through together over the last number of years, but I want to emphasize that hantavirus is a very different virus than the other respiratory viruses that we’ve been dealing with — like COVID, like influenza, like measles — and it remains one that we do not consider to have pandemic potential,” she said.

The cruise ship was scheduled to arrive in Rotterdam in the Netherlands on Monday after sailing from the Canary Islands “where the remaining passengers were escorted off the vessel by personnel in full-body protective gear and boarded flights to more than 20 countries to enter quarantine,” the AP reported Sunday, noting there were 11 cases of the illness, nine confirmed cases, and three people had died.

Video footage shows the cruise ship coming in to port:

One of the persons who died was a man from the Netherlands who was with his wife on an extended trip to South America where they were bird-watching, per Breitbart News.

Meanwhile, Canada’s health officials said authorities are working to ensure citizens are not in danger.

“The overall risk to the general population in Canada from the Andes hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship remains low at this time. All confirmed cases to date have been passengers or crew on the MV Hondius cruise ship,” officials stated, according to the AP.