A person in a hazmat suit is escorted to an ambulance from a medical aircraft believed to be carrying some of the passengers from the cruise ship, at Schiphol airport near Amsterdam on Wednesday.Peter Dejong/The Associated Press
Two Canadians who disembarked a cruise ship that’s been hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak are in Ontario and have been isolating since they returned home, the province’s health minister says.
A third person who was not on the hantavirus-stricken ship but was on the same flight home as the two Canadians who left the vessel is now isolating in Quebec, federal officials say.
Anita Anand, the foreign affairs minister, says a Canadian who “may have come into a contact with a symptomatic individual” is among those being monitored by local authorities.
Anand says Ottawa is sending consular officials to support Canadians on the cruise ship where the hantavirus outbreak has led to three deaths.
What is hantavirus, how does it spread and what are the symptoms?
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones said it is believed that they are not a transmission risk, but the situation is fluid.
Jones says the province is preparing to see if there are any other individuals who need to return to Canada and Ontario.
She says the incubation and monitoring period will likely be around 30 days.
Earlier this week, Global Affairs Canada said there were four Canadians among the nearly 150 people stranded aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship off the west coast of Africa.
Countries worldwide are seeking to prevent further spread of the hantavirus on Thursday, after an outbreak on the cruise ship, by tracking those who had already disembarked before the virus was detected and anyone in close contact with them since.
Three people – a Dutch couple and a German national – died in the outbreak on the MV Hondius. In total, five people are confirmed to have contracted the virus, with another three suspected cases, the World Health Organization said.
Hantavirus is usually spread by rodents but can in rare cases be transmitted person-to-person.