A Dutch cruise company has now confirmed that several passengers disembarked on the historically significant island of St. Helena, best known as the site of Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile, amid an outbreak of a deadly hantavirus. Until now, the company had not publicly acknowledged this disembarkation.
In The Hague, Netherlands, officials disclosed that approximately 40 passengers left the cruise ship following the first recorded death from the virus. This group included the wife of a deceased Dutch passenger. The departure occurred during a scheduled stop at St. Helena, a remote British territory in the South Atlantic.
The cruise operator had previously stated that the Dutch woman departed the ship along with her late husband’s body at St. Helena. She subsequently traveled to South Africa on a commercial flight, where she tragically collapsed and died at Johannesburg Airport.
In an earlier statement, the cruise company had not mentioned that there were additional passengers who disembarked at St. Helena.
Currently, authorities across South Africa and Europe are actively tracing the contacts of those who left the ship. This effort follows the discovery that a Swiss man tested positive for hantavirus after disembarking on St. Helena and returning to Switzerland, although the details of his journey remain unclear.
Authorities in South Africa and Europe are trying to trace the contacts of any passengers who got off the ship. It emerged Wednesday that a man tested positive for hantavirus in Switzerland after he also disembarked at St. Helena and flew home, though his precise movements aren’t clear.
Dutch authorities did not confirm where the other passengers who disembarked were Thursday.
A British man was evacuated from the ship to South Africa from Ascension Island days later, according to the company, while three people, including the ship’s doctor, were evacuated from the ship while it was near Cape Verde and taken to Europe for treatment on Wednesday.
Three passengers have died in the outbreak, and several others are sick.
The British island territory of St. Helena has a population of less than 5,000 people and is best known as the final exile spot for French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as where he died in 1821.
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