A person who came into contact with hantavirus on the Hondius cruise ship has arrived in the western German city of Dusseldorf for precautionary medical testing, a dpa reporter said late on Wednesday.
The person arrived in a special transport convoy at University Hospital Dusseldorf's infectious diseases unit after being picked up by Dusseldorf firefighters at Amsterdam airport.
The hospital said earlier that the person was asymptomatic and presumed not to be infected with the virus.
"This is a contact person with no confirmed evidence of a hantavirus infection. Admission is purely precautionary for medical evaluation," the hospital emphasized.
Three passengers of the Hondius - which is anchored off Cape Verde after sailing across the Atlantic from Argentina with just under 150 people on board - have died amid an outbreak of hantavirus.
Another passenger has tested positive for the virus after returning to Switzerland.
Three people have now been evacuated from the cruise ship, including a 65-year-old German woman, according to the Dutch Foreign Ministry. The ministry said she was the person being examined in Dusseldorf. The hospital did not comment on this.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is working with the operators of the Hondius to closely monitor the health of passengers and crew and to arrange evacuations if necessary.
"At this stage, the overall public health risk remains low," WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.
