Dubai: South Africa has confirmed that a rare strain of hantavirus capable of spreading between humans was detected in a passenger evacuated from a stricken Atlantic cruise ship after three people died in the outbreak.

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said preliminary tests identified the Andes strain — the only known hantavirus variant linked to human-to-human transmission — in a passenger transferred to Johannesburg from the remote Atlantic island of Saint Helena.

Authorities are now tracing nearly 90 people who were on the same commercial flight after a 69-year-old Dutch woman died in Johannesburg days after her husband, 70, died aboard the cruise ship.…