A Civil Guard officer suffered a fatal heart attack while assisting passengers off the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius as health officials in Kansas announced it was monitoring three people who had a “high-risk exposure” to someone who tested positive.
The 62-year-old officer was on reserve duty at an operational command post in Tenerife when he had the heart attack, according to a translation from Spanish-language Asociación Profesional Justicia Guardia Civil (JUCIL).
A Civil Guard officer suffered a fatal heart attack while assisting passengers off the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius cruise ship. ASSOCIATED PRESS Health officials in Kansas announced it was monitoring three people who had a “high-risk exposure” to someone who tested positive for hantavirus. Getty Images Fellow officers tried for 40 minutes to revive him but they were unable to save his life.
“Another colleague loses his life in the line of duty. Another family devastated,” JUCIL wrote in a statement.
Meanwhile, days after the 18 American passengers were evacuated from the ill-fated cruise ship to quarantine facilities in Nebraska and Georgia, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the CDC announced three people from the state are being monitored after a “high-risk exposure” to a person confirmed to have the deadly virus.
CDC defines high-risk exposure as “prolonged close contact or shared living space with a symptomatic individual, or close proximity during travel.”
Three MV Hondius passengers have died in the isolated outbreak so far, and WHO confirmed 11 total cases – nine of them confirmed and two “probable.”
WHO said it expects there will be more cases due to the close quarters nature of travel by ship, but downplayed the possibility of a larger outbreak.
