France and Netherlands Report Negative Hantavirus Tests Among Cruise Ship Contacts

French health officials said on Thursday that 26 people identified as close contacts of hantavirus cases linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship had tested negative for the illness. Dutch authorities reported that all individuals who arrived in the Netherlands on evacuation flights from the ship this week have also tested negative.

Twenty-six people are in hospital isolation in France, including 22 identified as close contacts of a Dutch woman on the MV Hondius that was at the centre of an international alert for the rare disease typically transmitted by rodents.

French doctors are monitoring four others who were on the ship. A fifth French passenger tested positive for hantavirus and is in serious condition in a French hospital. As of Thursday, all close contacts of a person who tested positive for hantavirus present in France have tested negative without exception, officials said.

Globally three people have died, six are confirmed to have hantavirus, and there is one probable case.

Hantavirus is typically transmitted by rodents.