About 40 passengers on a cruise ship affected by a deadly hantavirus outbreak disembarked on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena, and the first passenger died, Dutch officials said Thursday.Authorities are working to trace passengers and possible contacts after the outbreak killed several people and made others sick, and released new details about disembarkation earlier during the voyage.The passengers, including the wife of a dead Dutch man, left the ship while it was in British territory, the Associated Press reported, citing the Dutch Foreign Ministry.The Dutch cruise line that operates the ship said earlier that the woman disembarked on St. Helena with her husband’s body before taking a commercial flight to South Africa. She later died after collapsing at an airport in Johannesburg.However, the company has not confirmed that other passengers also disembarked in St. Helena.It is now revealed that a man tested positive for hantavirus in Switzerland after disembarking in St Helena and flying home, but his exact whereabouts remain unclear.Dutch authorities have not disclosed the current location of other disembarked passengers.Separately, days later, a British man was evacuated from a ship bound for South Africa from Ascension Island, according to the company. Three other people, including the ship’s doctor, were also evacuated from the ship off Cape Verde on Wednesday and flown to Europe for treatment.So far, three passengers have died in the outbreak and several others have become ill.
