AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A new suspected case of hantavirus was identified in a British national on the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha on Friday, as efforts continue to trace passengers of the luxury cruise ship hit by the virus and their immediate contacts.
The British health security agency did not disclose further details of the new suspected case on the world’s remotest inhabited island, home to only around 200 people, where the cruise ship made a stop on April 15.
Three people – a Dutch couple and a German national – have died in the outbreak on the MV Hondius.
Four others confirmed to be infected, two Britons, a Dutch and a Swiss national, are being treated in hospitals in the Netherlands, South Africa and Switzerland.
A Dutch woman died shortly after she had left the ship on April 24. She was the wife of ‘patient zero’, the Dutch man who died on the ship on April 11.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it would provide an update on the latest suspected and confirmed case numbers later on Friday.
Dutch health authorities said on Thursday two people who had been close to the woman before she was taken off a plane in Johannesburg on April 25, due to her deteriorating medical condition, had tested negative for the virus.
Among them was a flight attendant who had been admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam with symptoms of a possible infection, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
The Dutch public health institute said it was still waiting on clear test results for the third case on Friday.
