French Minister of Health Rist said at a press conference held on the 12th that the French side has currently identified 22 close contacts of the Dutch national who died on the 'Hondius' cruise ship. All of them will undergo testing and must be hospitalized for 15 days.
The French Ministry of Health stated the previous day that among the 22 close contacts, 8 people traveled with the Dutch female patient on a flight from Saint Helena Island in the Atlantic to Johannesburg, South Africa on April 25. The other 14 took the same Johannesburg to Amsterdam, Netherlands flight that the female patient briefly boarded on the same day. The female patient died in Johannesburg on April 26.
Rist pointed out that among the five French citizens evacuated from the affected cruise ship, one woman whose virus test previously came back positive "remains in intensive care, and her condition is serious," while the other four are in good condition.
She stated that currently "there is no evidence of widespread community transmission of the virus in France."
Professor Lescure from Paris’s Bichat Hospital, which received the five evacuees, said the full genetic sequencing results of the virus would be available in a few days; until then, maximum preventive measures must be taken, as "we may be dealing with a potentially mutated variant."