A British tourist was transferred Tuesday night to Milan’s Sacco Hospital in Italy, where he will remain in quarantine for 40 days after coming into contact with the 69-year-old Dutch woman who died after contracting hantavirus aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius.
The woman had boarded a flight to Johannesburg together with the British passenger before her condition rapidly deteriorated.
Italian authorities acted following an alert issued by the UK Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile, after a 24-year-old man living near Naples was placed under quarantine, authorities also ordered a 25-year-old man in the southern Italian region of Calabria into isolation. The decisions were taken by the mayors of Torre del Greco and Villa San Giovanni.
A security car is parked near the entrance to the Spallanzani infectious disease hospital where biological samples from an Italian man placed in quarantine after coming into contact with a woman who died of Hantavirus will be examined in Rome, Italy, May 12, 2026. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Both Italian men had come into contact with the 69-year-old passenger during the same flight. According to reports, the woman had boarded a KLM flight bound for Johannesburg for only a few minutes before South African health authorities, realizing she was seriously ill, asked her to leave the aircraft.
Neither of the two Italian men is showing symptoms, and the level of exposure is considered very limited. However, as a precaution, they will remain isolated for 45 days in rooms with private bathrooms, while wearing masks and recording their temperatures daily.
At the same time, in Messina, Sicily, an Argentine tourist suffering from pneumonia underwent laboratory testing to determine whether she is carrying a hantavirus strain. She had arrived in Italy by air 10 days ago from an area of Argentina where the virus is considered endemic.
French patient’s condition worsens
Spain has insisted it took “all necessary measures” to prevent transmission of the hantavirus after authorities confirmed two positive cases — one American and one French passenger — among those evacuated Sunday from the cruise ship after it arrived in the Canary Islands.
“All measures adopted from the beginning aimed to break any possible chains of transmission,” the Spanish Health Ministry said in a statement.
A plane carrying passengers from the cruise ship MV Hondius, which was affected by a hantavirus outbreak, arrives at Le Bourget Airport, near Paris, France, May 10, 2026. REUTERS/Abdul Saboor
At the same time, the US Department of Health announced that a second American passenger is displaying “mild symptoms.”
Of the five French nationals repatriated and placed in isolation in Paris, the condition of one woman “unfortunately worsened overnight” and “her tests came back positive,” French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said. She also revealed that French authorities have so far traced 22 contacts within France.
The crisis aboard the MV Hondius, which is expected to depart again for the Netherlands on Wednesday, has triggered growing concern and revived memories of the Covid-19 pandemic, although at this stage the World Health Organization has confirmed only six hantavirus cases among eight suspected infections, including the three people who died from the virus.
