Rare Andes hantavirus spreads aboard stranded cruise vessel, triggering international medical evacuations and urgent global containment efforts..
The World Health Organisation is set to hold an emergency media briefing on Thursday evening following a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, which has already claimed three lives and infected multiple passengers across several countries.
According to the WHO, eight cases linked to the outbreak have now been identified, including three laboratory-confirmed infections. The vessel, operated by Dutch cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions, departed from Argentina and was heading toward the Canary Islands before being halted near Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed that health authorities are closely monitoring the situation and will provide further updates through official channels.
Medical experts identified the virus involved as the Andes strain of hantavirus, a rare and dangerous variant capable of limited human-to-human transmission. The strain was confirmed through testing conducted by South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases and Geneva University Hospitals in Switzerland.
Health authorities explained that hantaviruses are generally transmitted through contact with infected rodents, including exposure to rodent urine, saliva, or droppings. However, the Andes strain, commonly found in parts of Argentina and Chile, is particularly concerning because it can occasionally spread between people through prolonged close contact in confined environments.
The outbreak has triggered a multinational tracing operation after nearly 40 passengers reportedly disembarked from the ship during a stop at the remote British territory of St Helena following the first death onboard.
Among those who left the vessel was the wife of a Dutch passenger who later died in South Africa. She subsequently collapsed at Johannesburg airport and later died after laboratory tests confirmed hantavirus infection. A Swiss passenger who also disembarked later tested positive after returning home.
Dutch authorities confirmed that several evacuated passengers remain under medical treatment, including a Dutch woman in South Africa and a Swiss man currently receiving care. Officials are still attempting to determine the locations of other passengers who left the ship.
Additional emergency evacuations took place while the vessel was near Cape Verde. Three individuals, including the ship’s doctor, were airlifted to Europe for treatment as conditions onboard worsened.
A British passenger was separately evacuated from Ascension Island to South Africa and remains in intensive care, according to South African authorities.
One of the medical evacuation flights landed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Thursday morning after transiting through Gran Canaria in Spain. Other evacuated patients were transferred to hospitals in the Netherlands and Germany for specialised treatment and isolation.
Global health authorities are now racing to contain the outbreak and assess the possibility of additional infections linked to the passengers who travelled through multiple international transit points before the virus was fully identified.
