“I feel great physically — most days I feel great,” Kornfeld told ABC. “I feel great emotionally. It’s great to be negative for Hantavirus.”
Evacuation complete
In total, there have been 10 cases: seven who fell ill on board, one who disembarked on April 24, before the outbreak was identified, and who fell ill in Switzerland. In the remaining two cases – one from France and the other from Spain – it was determined that the ship had been evacuated and the passengers returned. The death toll has not changed since May 2, with only three people: a Dutch couple and a German woman.
Also at the press conference of the WHO, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the operation in the Canary Islands for the safe evacuation of the ship has been completed. The operation involved repatriating the ship’s more than 120 passengers or quarantining them in host countries en route to their final destinations.
“Due to the long incubation period of up to six weeks, more cases may be reported in the coming days as passengers return to their countries where they are quarantined and tested in specialized facilities or at home,” Tedros said. “This does not mean that the epidemic is spreading; it shows that control measures are working, that laboratory tests are ongoing and that people are being cared for with the support of their governments.”
The US is monitoring 41 people who may have been exposed. This includes 18 passengers (including Kornfeld) who were evacuated Hondiuspassengers who disembarked on April 24 and shared a flight with a Dutch woman (the wife of the first case) who contracted the infection on the way home and died in South Africa.
