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. Another passenger, a British national, remains hospitalized in Johannesburg. “And it happens to be the only strain out of the 38 that is known to cause human-to-human transmission,” Motsoaledi told a parliamentary committee, while stressing such spread is “very rare” and usually requires close contact between people.…