Germany monitoring in Frankfurt four contacts from hantavirus-hit cruise ship

Four German contacts from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship MV Hondius are being monitored in a special isolation unit at Frankfurt University Hospital after arriving overnight, German health authorities said on Monday.

A health ministry spokesperson told Reuters the patients, all currently without symptoms, would later be transferred to Berlin, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria and Schleswig-Holstein, where regional authorities will take over their care.

Frankfurt University Hospital said the four were brought in between midnight and 1 a.m. local time for medical checks and laboratory testing in Frankfurt and Marburg.

So far, there were "no indications of illness," Timo Wolf, head of the special isolation ward for highly pathogenic infections in Frankfurt, said in a statement.

Hantaviruses are rodent-borne viruses that can infect people and cause illness. The strain identified on the ship is the Andes hantavirus, which can spread human-to-human and typically circulates in Argentina and Chile.

The MV Hondius set off from Argentina and was carrying mostly British, American and Spanish passengers. Three people have died since the start of the outbreak - a Dutch couple and a German national.

-Reporting by Kirsti Knolle, Editing by Linda Pasquini/Reuters