French hantavirus patient is critically ill, on an artificial lung as total cases grow to 11

PARIS (AP) — A French woman infected in the deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship is critically ill and being treated with an artificial lung, a doctor at the Paris hospital caring for the sickened passenger said Tuesday. The outbreak has now reached 11 total reported cases, 9 of which have been confirmed.

Three people on the cruise died, including a Dutch couple that health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America.

The French passenger hospitalized in Paris has a severe form of the disease that has caused life-threatening lung and heart problems, said Dr. Xavier Lescure, an infectious disease specialist at Bichat Hospital.

He said the woman is on a life-support device that pumps blood through an artificial lung, providing it with oxygen and returning it to the body. The hope is that the device relieves enough pressure on the lungs and heart to give them some time to recover. Lescure called it “the final stage of supportive care.”

With the evacuation of all passengers and many crew members completed, the MV Hondius is now sailing back to the Netherlands, where it will be cleaned and disinfected.

The director of the World Health Organization said confirmed and suspected cases have only been reported among the cruise ship's passengers or crew.

“At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general. He added: “But of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks.”

The latest person confirmed to be infected is a Spanish passenger who tested positive for hantavirus after being evacuated from the ship, Spain’s health ministry said Tuesday. The passenger was in quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid.

Health authorities say it is the first hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship. While there is no cure or vaccine for hantavirus, the WHO says early detection and treatment improves survival rates.

Argentina’s health ministry said Tuesday a team of scientific experts will be dispatched in the coming days to investigate the origin of outbreak.

A Dutch couple, identified by the WHO as the first cruise passengers infected with hantavirus, spent several months in Argentina and neighboring South American countries before boarding the cruise ship. The husband and wife later died.

Argentine officials have said the couple took a bird-watching tour that included a stop at a garbage dump where they may have been exposed to rodents carrying the infection. The health ministry said its team will investigate the landfill and other locations the couple visited where rats known to carry the virus are found, although local officials in the province where the cruise departed have challenged the theory it began there.

A total of 87 passengers and 35 crew were escorted from the ship to shore in Tenerife by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks in a carefully choreographed effort that ended Monday night.

Two aircraft arrived in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven overnight carrying Dutch nationals as well as passengers from Australia and New Zealand and crew members from the Philippines. All were placed into quarantine, according to the Dutch government.

Some crew stayed aboard the ship and set course for the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, said ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions.

Hantavirus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms — which can include fever, chills and muscle aches — usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

WHO chief Tedros has advised that returning passengers should stay in quarantine, either in their homes or in other facilities, for 42 days. He added that WHO cannot enforce its guidance, and that different countries may handle the monitoring of passengers without symptoms in different ways.

Twelve employees at a Dutch hospital where a passenger from the Hondius is being treated have to quarantine for six weeks after improperly handling bodily fluids, Radboud University Medical Center said in a statement Monday night.

The “risk of infection is low” the hospital said, but it was requiring the dozen employees to go into preventive quarantine as a “precaution.”

The hospital in the eastern city of Nijmegen received a passenger last week from one of the evacuation flights that landed in the Netherlands and the person has since tested positive for hantavirus.

Blood and urine from the patient should have been handled “according to a stricter procedure,” the hospital said.

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writers Mike Corder and Molly Quell in The Hague, Netherlands; Suman Naishadham in Madrid; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lauran Neergaard in Washington; and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

From left, Executive Director of Sante Publique France Caroline Semaille, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist, Professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Yazdan Yazdanpanah and infectious disease specialist Xavier Lescure attend a press conference about the situation regarding the hantavirus, in Paris, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

An ambulance enters the Bichat Hospital where a woman who tested positive for hantavirus remains in intensive care, in Paris, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gives a press conference at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Carlos Luján/Europa Press via AP)

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, left, and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attend a press conference at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Carlos Luján/Europa Press via AP)

Passengers board a plane bound for Eindhoven, after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)

The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is seen at anchor at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on the House Budget Committee advanced a $95 billion package Thursday for the Iran war, farm aid and President Donald Trump's push for strict new voter ID requirements, moving forward on a party-line vote despite trouble in the full House — and the Senate.

Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington framed the proposal as one last push to deliver for voters ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. It advanced on a vote of 20-14.

"We are rallying to finish what we started when the American people sent us here,” said Arrington, R-Texas.

With Iran war funding making up the bulk of the package, some $60 billion, Arrington acknowledged that people can debate “why we're there” in the overseas conflict. But he said the money is needed for basic supplies — "just the bombs, bullets and battlefield readiness for our men and women in uniform to finish the fight successfully and return home safely — that’s it."

The resolution, which sets out instructions for the various congressional committees to draw up proposals, also calls for $13 billion for Intelligence, $12 billion for Agriculture, and $10 billion for Administration, which handles voting and elections.

The proposal is the third budget reconciliation package Republicans in control of Congress have put forward this session to steamroll Trump's priorities past Democratic objections using a legislative procedure that allows for simple majority votes for passage.

It's the same process House Speaker Mike Johnson used to pass Trump's big tax cuts bill last year and to advance Homeland Security money after Democrats refused to fund the department following the deaths of Americans protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions earlier this year.

Johnson is pushing the effort almost single-handedly, without full backing from his slim House Republican majority or the Senate. He held lengthy meetings with Trump this week at the White House and hosted a private session for Republicans at the president's Camp David retreat to hash out details.

But the 47-page package remains a long-shot effort — too meager for some, too costly for others — ahead of voting in the full House expected next week.

Key Republican Rep. Chip Roy, an influential member of the Freedom Caucus who has expressed reservations about the package, did not vote at the Budget Committee session, as his home state of Texas deals with flooding.

Democrats are ready to vote against the proposal, as they did Thursday during committee action.

Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, said the document, some 6,500 words, never once mentions the issue that's top of mind for many Americans: affordability.

“People know this is a failed presidency, and a failed Republican majority,” Boyle said.

Democrats offered more than a dozen amendments to the package during the hourslong Budget Committee session and raised questions about how the new spending will ultimately be paid for — either via budget cuts to other programs or by piling onto the nation's debt.

Boyle offered an amendment to reverse healthcare cuts from the Republicans' big tax breaks bill. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., sought to reinstate funding for food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., suggested funding for immigration enforcement at Department of Homeland Security could be used to offset costs elsewhere.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, blamed the high costs of living on the Iran war and said every time Americans open their refrigerators or go to the gas pump they are “paying for a war that should never have been started.”

Next steps are highly volatile, as the House holds a rare Saturday pro forma session, which is a largely administrative meeting that will allow the resolution to be filed in time for consideration next week.

Johnson can only lose a few detractors on his side of the aisle as he relies on Republicans only, without Democrats, for passage.

But the resolution would also have to be agreed on by the Senate, and Republican senators have largely panned the House effort, waiting to see if Johnson can heave it to passage.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said senators have “a lot of questions” about it – from defense hawks concerned about the military to deficit hawks who want to offset costs.

“It’s a very uneven path,” he said. “We’ll see what the House can execute on,” he said, but “I can’t make any guarantees over here.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who is expected to take over the Senate Budget Committee after the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, has been a leading budget hawk concerned about the nation's rising deficits.

The House plans to have its committees work on bill text over the August recess and bring the whole package back to the floor for a final vote in the fall.

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, right, speaks with Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., the ranking member, during a markup on the Fiscal Year 2027 spending plan, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 16, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., center, joined by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, left, listens during a markup on the Fiscal Year 2027 spending plan, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 16, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, center, speaks with an aide during a markup on the Fiscal Year 2027 spending plan, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 16, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)