Health officials respond after hantavirus patient seen removing mask

Health officials have spoken out about a new case of Hantavirus, which comes after passengers were seen removing their masks as they returned home from the stricken cruise ship.

At the time of questioning, a French passenger had only shown symptoms on board their flight home, but it has since been confirmed by Sky News that they have tested positive for hantavirus.

As well as the French woman, two of the 17 American passengers who were flown to Nebraska have also since tested positive.

The passenger is being treated in a hospital specialising in infectious diseases, according to French health minister Stéphanie Rist.

"Her condition deteriorated overnight," she said.

Officials from the Spanish Health Ministry, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions had previously claimed that nobody else on the ship had tested positive or shown symptoms.

Passengers have been evacuated from the ship and sent home (Lina Selg / AFP via Getty Images)

The new positive results pushed the number of cases into double figures.

Before the test was positive, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus responded to a question from the press about the French passenger and also the fact many weren't wearing masks.

He said the mask was hanging from the passenger's ears, and said many of them are elderly and the masks are uncomfortable for them: "It was hanging on one of his ears. Many of these passengers are elderly and you can imagine how uncomfortable it could be especially with the FFP2 masks."

Speaking about the French passenger, he said: "There are symptoms, it doesn't mean it's related to hantavirus, but of course, it may also be, but I know, the French experts will do all that's needed to do to manage this."

"Of course it should be checked. But with age comes many health challenges. That was actually one of the concerns we had with this ship, because many of them are elderly and they have many other chronic conditions, and there could be symptoms associated with those."

Sky News also reports that Spanish officials are disputing the result for the two positive US passengers.

The Spanish government said an epidemiologist from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control assessed the Americans: "A diagnostic test was carried out and sent to two laboratories; in one of them, the result was considered by the US authorities to be a weak positive, although we did not consider it conclusive," it said.

"The second test was negative. The person in question showed no symptoms whilst in Cape Verde; however, the US authorities have decided to treat the case as positive."

Some 140 passengers were evacuated (AFP via Getty Images)

They also defended their handling of the evacuation in the Canary Islands, insisting the French passenger was well when they disembarked and began to feel unwell during the flight back to France.

"All measures taken from the outset have been aimed at breaking any possible chains of transmission. In a patient who develops a fever, it would not be unusual for a case to appear among close contacts; this is precisely why all preventive and transmission control measures have been applied," the Spanish government added.

Some 20 British passengers have arrived back in the UK and are now isolating at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside after arriving at Manchester Airport.

Contact tracing has now begun by government officials, to track down anyone who might have come into contact with people who had been evacuated, revealed Robin May, the chief scientific officer at the UK Health Security Agency.

According to The Independent, one of the first patients to be taken to hospital, a British man is 'clinically improving,' a South African health ministry spokesperson said.

The spokesperson, Foster Mohale, said: "The British ⁠patient is clinically improving but still ill, this ‌means ​his condition is ‌improving, ⁠gradually so."

Three deaths are linked to the cruise ship outbreak so far.

The victims include a Dutch couple, both aged 69, and a German woman.

Officials stressed that only one of the deaths has been confirmed to be hantavirus so far.