Authorities in Milan detained a British man and his companion at an Italian bar last night and took them to Sacco Hospital after tracing them to a flight linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak. The man, understood to be in his 60s, had shown no symptoms before testing negative for the disease, but the pair must now remain in quarantine until June 6.
The British man was on the same Airlink flight as Mirjam Schilperoord on a trip from Saint Helena to Johannesburg, extending a case that has already cut across three continents. The development matters today because health officials are still trying to contain a virus that has already killed three people and infected 11 cruise passengers, while the long incubation period leaves open the possibility of more cases.
The wider outbreak was confirmed on board the Dutch cruise ship last month, after passengers and crew had moved through South America, St Helena, South Africa and Europe. Dutch passengers aboard the MV Hondius, which carried 112 other passengers when it sailed from Ushuaia on April 1, were among those caught in the chain of infection.
Argentinian authorities believe Leo and Mirjam Schilperoord contracted the fAndes strain of hantavirus at a landfill site four miles outside Ushuaia on March 27. Leo Schilperoord fell ill on April 6 with fever, headache, stomach pain and diarrhoea, then died five days later on the ship. Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, became unwell after travelling with his body to South Africa, was denied clearance for a KLM flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam, and was rushed to hospital before dying on April 26.
The World Health Organisation has warned that the virus could keep spreading because of its long incubation period, even as there is no sign yet of a larger outbreak. That is the friction in this case: a path of infection that has already crossed borders, and a timeline that still leaves room for more people to fall ill before the quarantine in Milan ends on June 6.
