Greece Flies Home Hantavirus-Exposed Citizen From Plague Ship

Greece has deployed an Air Force craft to repatriate a 70-year-old nationalist exposed to hantavirus aboard a cruise vessel that killed astatine slightest 3 radical — hours aft Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis was forced to retract an alarming societal media station that sparked nationalist panic implicit the mission.

Mr. Georgiadis apologized for initially stating the national was "suffering from hantavirus," clarifying helium had misspoken and that the antheral is afloat asymptomatic.

The rider was connected committee the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius erstwhile a hantavirus outbreak struck the vas earlier it docked successful Tenerife, Spain.

The Greek Air Force formation transported the rider from Eindhoven, Netherlands, to Elefsina subject airbase, accompanied by a physician, a caregiver and the president of the National Public Health Organization.

He volition beryllium transferred by ambulance to a negative-pressure isolation enclosure astatine Attikon University Hospital for a mandatory 45-day quarantine.

Mr. Georgiadis dismissed critics who called the repatriation a nationalist wellness hazard arsenic "toxic and conspiratorial," adding: "Greece ne'er leaves anyone behind."

Health authorities stressed that hantavirus spreads chiefly done interaction with infected rodents and carries minimal hazard of human-to-human transmission.