Britain's health security agency has said that an additional suspected case of hantavirus had been identified in a British national on the South Atlantic island of Tristan de Cunha.
Two British nationals have been confirmed as cases of hantavirus, as part of its monitoring of the deadly outbreak on a luxury cruise ship, the UK Health Security Agency said.
It comes as countries worldwide are seeking to prevent the further spread of the hantavirus by tracking those who had disembarked from the MV Hondius before the virus was detected and anyone who had close contact with them since.
Three people - a Dutch couple and a German national - died in the outbreak on the ship.
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.
All passengers who disembarked in St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, where the ship made a stop on 24 April, have been contacted, the ship's operator said.
This included people from at least 12 countries, among them seven British citizens and six from the US.
The first confirmed case of hantavirus in this outbreak came in early May.
'This is not Covid'
The WHO repeated that the risk to the general public was low, even if the Andean strain of the virus, found in several victims, can in rare cases be transmitted among humans.
"This is not coronavirus, this is a very different virus," Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO director of epidemic and pandemic management, told a press conference.
"This is not the same situation we were in six years ago."
The WHO said it was working on step-by-step guidance for when the dozens of passengers remaining on the ship, which is sailing to the Canary Islands, arrive there on Saturday or Sunday and the passengers disembark and travel home.
None of these passengers, including two Irish nationals, currently have any symptoms.
Monitoring the virus
The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was closely monitoring the situation, adding that the risk to the American public was extremely low at the time.
The US CDC has classified the outbreak as a "level 3' emergency response, ABC News reported.
President Donald Trump told reporters he had been briefed on the hantavirus and expressed hope that it was under control.
"It's very much, we hope, under control," Mr Trump said.
Asked whether Americans should be concerned about any spread of the virus, Mr Trump replied: "I hope not." He also said, without elaborating, that a report on the virus was expected.
Contact tracing
The ship's operator Oceanwide Expeditions said it was working to establish details of all passengers and crew who embarked and disembarked on various stops since 20 March.
The Dutch couple who died, and who are believed to be the first hantavirus cases of this outbreak, boarded on 1 April.
Dutch airline KLM said it had taken the Dutch woman off a plane in Johannesburg on 25 April due to her deteriorating medical condition.
She died before she could reach the Netherlands.
A KLM cabin crew member who had been in contact was admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam yesterday after showing possible hantavirus symptoms.
However, The WHO said this morning that she had tested negative for a possible infection.
Crew and passengers who helped the Dutch woman are being called daily for health checks, Dutch authorities told public broadcaster NOS.
Evacuations, tests
Three patients were evacuated from the ship on Wednesday.
Two have been admitted to a hospital in the Netherlands, while another was transferred to Germany for medical care.
Martin Anstee, an expedition guide, was one of the two evacuees in hospital in the Netherlands, according to Sky News, and told them he was "doing OK" but "there are still lots of tests to be done".
The Duesseldorf University Clinic, treating the German evacuee, said she was not a confirmed case but rather a contact and was undergoing tests.
In Switzerland, a man who travelled on the cruise ship and was admitted to a hospital had tested positive for the infection, officials said.
A Danish citizen who was aboard MV Hondius has returned home and has been advised to self-isolate as a precaution, Danish health authorities said.
In Canada, officials said that two Canadians on the cruise returned home before the outbreak was identified and another Canadian was on the same flight as a symptomatic person.
All three are currently asymptomatic.
Hantavirus not as contagious as Covid - Mills
Professor of Experimental Immunology at Trinity College Dublin Kingston Mills said the Andes strain of hantavirus is transmissible from human to human but is not as contagious as coronavirus.
"I think that people are still scared of the Covid pandemic and they say deja vu but ... it is not as transmissible a virus.
"In fact, normally this virus doesn't transmit at all from human to human. But this particular strain, the Andes strain, does transmit from human to human.
"But its transmission is not nearly as easy as something like influenza or SARS-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19. But nevertheless, it now is clear that this strain does transmit from human to human," Prof Mills said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said: "If the individuals that are infected are isolated, the risk is going to be minimised."
He also said contact tracing is difficult.
"If you remember back to Covid-19, the early parts of the pandemic, that was one of the big issues - trying to find people that are contacted.
"Now again, I have to stress that from what we understand, the transmissibility of the virus requires close contact. So just, whereas with Covid-19 being in the same room as someone who had the infection was enough to get infected," Prof Mills said.
