Italian Health Ministry: all four people quarantined for possible hantavirus have tested NEGATIVE - including the 25-year-old Calabrian sailor whose Spallanzani PCR was the day's open hinge

Detroit News / Reuters byline (May 13 2026, 09:17 ET): 'Four people under observation in Italy for possible hantavirus infection have all tested negative, the health ministry said on Wednesday.' The four tested: an Argentine tourist hospitalised in Sicily with pneumonia (Buenos Aires-Rome flight, April 30 departure from endemic region); a man from the southern Italian region of Calabria who was in voluntary isolation (the 25-year-old Spallanzani case, IT-CAL-001 in Pathwatch records); a British tourist located in Milan; and his travelling companion. The Italian Ministry of Health statement: 'The risk connected with the virus remains very low in Europe and therefore also in Italy.' The Italian PCR result resolves the day's largest open hinge - the Calabrian sailor was the suspected first transmission event off the cruise itself and onto the Johannesburg-Amsterdam KLM flight; the negative result returns him to ordinary flight-contact monitoring status alongside the rest of the cohort.

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Detroit News (Reuters byline)

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hantavirus