GENEVA: The captain of the cruise ship which was hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak was finally due to leave the vessel on Saturday, the WHO chief said.&nbsp;Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, has been in regular contact with captain Jan Dobrogowski, throughout the ordeal on the MV Hondius.&nbsp;The Dutch-flagged ship set off April 1 from Ushuaia, Argentina, taking in remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean before heading north to Cape Verde, then Tenerife in Spain&#39;s Canary Islands, where remaining passengers were evacuated.&nbsp;The polar exploration ship docked in Rotterdam harbour in the Netherlands on Monday, with the skeleton crew facing weeks of quarantine.&nbsp;&quot;Just received the last message from captain Jan Dobrogowski, who is finally leaving the MV Hondius cruise ship today. He remains without hantavirus symptoms,&quot; Tedros said on X.&nbsp;He said that, so far, 12 suspected and confirmed cases have been reported to the WHO, including three deaths, adding that no deaths had been reported since May 2.&nbsp;&quot;All the passengers and crew are now in quarantine with close monitoring to receive care if need be,&quot; said Tedros.&nbsp;&quot;I&#39;m deeply grateful for Jan&rsquo;s cooperation and leadership as he navigated the ship through an extraordinary and scary journey. Thank you, dear Jan, for steering your passengers towards safety.&quot;&nbsp;A crew member who disembarked in Tenerife and was repatriated to the Netherlands was confirmed Friday as a new hantavirus case.&nbsp;The crew member had been in home quarantine and was transferred to hospital after the Andes virus was detected, said the RIVM (Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment).&nbsp;The Andes variant is the only strain of hantavirus known to be able to jump from human to human, via very close contact.&nbsp;Everyone evacuated from the ship to the Netherlands is being tested every week. The positive test was confirmed by two separate laboratories, the RIVM said.&nbsp;Tedros told a press conference on Friday that more than 600 contacts were being followed in 30 countries, while a small number of high-risk contacts were still being located.&nbsp;Spread by rodents, hantavirus is a rare virus for which no vaccines or specific treatments exist.

Europe

Captain Jan Dobrogowski of cruise ship MV Hondius is leaving after a hantavirus outbreak. There are 12 cases and 3 deaths and over 600 contacts are being tracked worldwide.

Hondius captain to leave hantavirus ship: WHO

SYDNEY: A passenger from the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius cruise ship is in quarantine on tiny Pitcairn Island, a volcanic outcrop in the South Pacific famously settled by mutineers from the HMS Bounty. The woman, a US citizen, journeyed halfway across the globe to reach remote Pitcairn Island after disembarking the cruise ship in Saint Helena, authorities said. &quot;We can confirm that someone who had contact with a hantavirus-exposed individual is currently isolating on Pitcairn Island, showing no signs of illness,&quot; said a Pitcairn government spokesman. &quot;We are working closely with the health authorities and the UK Government to manage the situation. The wellbeing of our community remains the top priority.&quot; It was not clear how long the woman might be stuck on Pitcairn Island or how she will be isolated from the around 50 people who call the British territory home. Pitcairn Islanders contacted by AFP said they had been advised against speaking with journalists and should pass all questions on to government officials. It was no small effort for the jet-setting American to reach Pitcairn Island, which bills itself as a &quot;must see for adventurous travellers seeking truly remote horizons&quot;. She first flew from San Francisco to Tahiti and then onwards to the isle of Mangareva in outer French Polynesia. From Mangareva most tourists reach Pitcairn by hitching a 32-hour ride on one of the cargo ships that shuttle back and forth every few days. The government of French Polynesia said she had done all this without telling authorities of her possible exposure to hantavirus. She will not be allowed to leave the island as long as she &quot;poses a risk to others&quot;, the government said in a statement earlier this week. The UK government -- which counts Pitcairn as an overseas territory -- said the woman was not symptomatic, but it was still taking a &quot;precautionary approach&quot;. There is only one grocery store on Pitcairn Island, which typically opens three times a week. The nearest hospitals are in French Polynesia, some 1,350 miles (2,170 kilometres) to the northwest, or New Zealand, about 5,300 kilometres (3,300 miles) southwest. Three people died after the rare rat-borne hantavirus spread through passengers holidaying on the MV Hondius cruise ship, sparking a global health scare. Health authorities have repeatedly emphasised that the broader risk to public health from the outbreak of the Andes strain of hantavirus &nbsp;the only one known to spread between people is low. Globally, the death toll remains at three. No vaccines or specific treatments exist, but health officials have said the risk is low and have dismissed comparisons to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Pitcairn Islands were colonised in 1790 by the mutinous crew of the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty, led by the master&#39;s mate Fletcher Christian. Their actions, casting adrift the ship&#39;s captain William Bligh, have been immortalised in books and film. Pitcairn&#39;s people are descended from the mutineers and their Tahitian companions.

Independent CONICET researcher and National University of Cordoba associate professor Raul Gonzalez Ittig holds a preserved specimen of a Graomys chacoensis rodent inside the Population Genetics and Evolution Laboratory of the Institute of Diversity and A

Australasia

A US woman exposed to hantavirus from the MV Hondius cruise ship is quarantined on remote Pitcairn Island, raising concerns among its tiny isolated community.

Passenger from hantavirus cruise quarantines on remote Pitcairn Island

Bordeaux: French authorities on Wednesday confined more than 1,700 passengers and crew on a British cruise ship docked in Bordeaux after an elderly passenger died, said officials, who played down any links to the <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/argentinas-deadly-hantavirus-memories-resurface-after-cruise-ship-outbreak" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">hantavirus scare</a>.&nbsp;Dozens also suffered from upset stomachs aboard the Ambition &ndash; most of whose 1,233 passengers are from Britain or Ireland &ndash; which arrived in the western port of Bordeaux on Tuesday, with 514 Indian crew members also on board. But health officials said there was no connection with the hantavirus outbreak, suspected of killing three passengers on the Dutch MV Hondius <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/hantavirushit-cruise-ship-arrives-in-spains-canary-islands" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">cruise ship</a> that set sail from Argentina. One 90-year-old passenger on the Ambition, run by the Ambassador Cruise Line company, had died and about 50 people have shown symptoms of stomach issues, the officials said. Initial tests ruled out an outbreak of norovirus, a highly contagious form of gastroenteritis which causes vomiting and diarrhea, but secondary tests were still underway, they added. Food poisoning had not been excluded. Passengers on board the Ambition showed peak symptoms on Monday when the ship was docked in Brest, the officials said. The 90-year-old died before they arrived at the port in France&#39;s northwestern Brittany region. The ship, which left the Shetland Islands north of Scotland on May 6, stopped in Belfast in Northern Ireland and Liverpool in England before reaching Bordeaux, from where it was scheduled to depart for Spain. No security measures were in place around the ship as it was docked in Bordeaux on Wednesday, an AFP reporter said. Passengers were taking pictures of the French city from the deck.

Norovirus particles, illustration. Norovirus is the most common cause of viral gastroenteritis. (AFP)

French authorities investigate gastrointestinal illness on a British cruise ship docked in Bordeaux, with health officials testing possible causes among passengers and crew.

France locks down 1,700 on cruise ship after 90-year-old dies

EPUYEN: Mailen Valle lost her father and two sisters in a hantavirus outbreak more than seven years ago in Epuyen, a village in Argentina&#39;s Patagonia region. With the recent hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship, hard memories have resurfaced for the 33-year-old. &quot;Losing my dad and my two sisters in less than a month...&quot; she told AFP. Her voice broke, and she laughed nervously, opting to read from a prepared statement because she knew it would be hard to speak. &quot;Nobody was prepared to see how, in a matter of days, a family table was left empty,&quot; she recalled. While the Hondius outbreak has left three people dead, it has yet to surpass the Epuyen outbreak, which recorded 34 cases and 11 fatalities between December 2018 and March 2019 in the town of 2,400 residents, situated in a part of the Andes where hantavirus is endemic. Mailen&#39;s father, Aldo Valle, came down with it after attending a birthday party. &quot;The person with the virus was just sitting at the same table as my dad. And at that table, several people got infected, and people died,&quot; Mailen recalled. The wake for Valle was another locus of infection, where all three of his daughters got sick. One sister died &quot;within hours&quot; of showing symptoms, while for the other, &quot;we had to take her to the cemetery without a wake,&quot; Mailen said. Pre-Covid isolationThe variant of the hantavirus suspected in both outbreaks is transmitted through the droppings, saliva, and urine of the Andean mouse. Jorge Diaz, an epidemiologist with Chubut province&#39;s health department who worked on the Epuyen hantavirus outbreak, told AFP that &quot;we knew very little about the disease&quot; in 2018. Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus was first documented in 1996 in the neighboring town of El Bolson and was later found to have occurred in Epuyen. &quot;We implemented quarantine, which required those who made contact with a positive case to isolate for 45 days,&quot; Diaz explained. About 100 people underwent quarantine, a display that would foreshadow the COVID-19 pandemic that broke out a year later. The approach, dubbed &quot;selective isolation,&quot; marked a shift in the epidemiological response, and now &quot;each time there is a case of (Andes) hantavirus, isolation is ordered or recommended.&quot; &#39;One thing after another&#39;Residents in Patagonia know how to protect themselves from the virus, which they call &quot;the hanta,&quot; by airing out sheds and cleaning areas with bleach. But the human transmission of the Epuyen outbreak changed the scale of the fight, as one could get infected from their neighbor just as easily as from an Andean mouse. Mailen remembers the stigma. &quot;We felt very discriminated against,&quot; she said. Others recall being banned from shops in nearby towns. Isabel Diaz, 53, survived the outbreak with a different stigma; her father, Victor Diaz, was labeled &quot;patient zero&quot; and attended the birthday party while displaying the early symptoms of hantavirus. &quot;People looked poorly at my father. It&#39;s not his fault he got sick,&quot; she told AFP, her eyes welling up. &quot;Nobody chooses to get sick, much less infect others, much less lose a mother.&quot; Isabel got sick from her father&#39;s hantavirus case, as well as her mother. &quot;She was the sixth patient&quot; of the eleven who died, she said. Her father, for his part, recalled how it felt to come down with hantavirus, causing body aches and a bitter taste that even made sipping water unpleasant. &quot;It started with a feeling of weakness. I didn&#39;t feel like eating. And I started to get purple spots,&quot; he said. &quot;That same day, I lost consciousness.&quot; In the years since the hantavirus outbreak, Epuyen has endured the COVID-19 pandemic and major wildfires in 2025 and 2026, permanently changing the landscape. &quot;It&#39;s one thing after another,&quot; Victor said, laughing. &quot;No one is going to tell us what it means to live life and keep moving forward,&quot; Isabel Diaz added.

Americas

Survivors of Argentina’s deadly 2018 hantavirus outbreak recall painful memories after the recent cruise ship outbreak, highlighting trauma, stigma, quarantine measures and the lasting impact of the rare disease.

Argentina’s deadly hantavirus memories resurface after cruise ship outbreak

GRANADILLA DE ABONA (SPAIN):&nbsp;An American national and a French woman evacuated from a cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak have tested positive, health officials confirmed on Monday, as an international repatriation operation continued across several countries. According to French Health Minister Stephanie Rist, the French passenger began feeling unwell on Sunday night after returning to Paris from the Dutch-flagged cruise vessel MV Hondius. Medical tests later confirmed she had contracted the virus. Meanwhile, US health authorities said one American passenger had developed mild symptoms while another tested positive for the Andes virus, the only known strain of hantavirus capable of spreading between humans. The outbreak aboard the MV Hondius has already claimed the lives of three passengers, including a Dutch couple and a German woman. Several other passengers also fell ill during the voyage. Hantavirus is a rare disease usually spread through contact with infected rodents. There is currently no vaccine or specific treatment available for the illness, which is considered endemic in parts of Argentina, where the cruise began its journey in April. Despite growing international concern, health authorities stressed that the overall risk to global public health remains low and rejected comparisons with the Covid-19 pandemic. French authorities said 22 additional contact cases involving French nationals were being monitored. These included passengers who travelled on flights between Saint Helena and Johannesburg, and between Johannesburg and Amsterdam. The Dutch woman who later died had reportedly travelled on the Johannesburg flight and briefly boarded a connecting flight to Amsterdam before being removed from the aircraft. Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said 94 people from 19 countries were evacuated from the ship on Sunday near Tenerife in Spain&rsquo;s Canary Islands. Most of the ship&rsquo;s nearly 150 passengers and crew members are expected to be repatriated through special flights to countries including Australia and the Netherlands. Passengers wearing blue medical protective suits were seen disembarking the vessel at the industrial port of Granadilla on Tenerife. The World Health Organization has recommended a 42-day quarantine period and active medical monitoring for exposed individuals. Countries have adopted different quarantine measures. Greece said one evacuee would remain in hospital isolation for 45 days, while Australia announced that six passengers would be quarantined at a special facility near Perth for at least three weeks. British authorities said 20 UK nationals from the ship would undergo testing and short-term quarantine near Liverpool. The MV Hondius departed from Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1 for a transatlantic cruise toward Cape Verde. The World Health Organization believes the first infection may have occurred before the voyage began, followed by human-to-human transmission aboard the ship. Spain on Monday said it is taking &quot;all measures&quot; to prevent hantavirus spread from those aboard the cruise ship.

An American and a French passenger tested positive after evacuation from a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak, prompting international quarantines and a large-scale repatriation operation across several countries.

US, French nationals from hantavirus ship test positive

WASHINGTON: American passengers evacuated from a cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak will not necessarily be quarantined, a top US health official said Sunday. Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also urged the US public to remain calm about the hantavirus, saying: &quot;This is not Covid.&quot; The United States announced Friday that it would organize a repatriation flight for the 17 Americans aboard the MV Hondius, where three passengers have died and others have fallen sick. The ship has arrived in Spain&#39;s Canary Islands. The US passengers, all of whom are asymptomatic, will be taken to a specialized center in the rural state of Nebraska, but will not necessarily be quarantined there, Bhattacharya told CNN&#39;s &quot;State of the Union&quot; news program on Sunday. &quot;We&#39;re going to interview them and assess them for risk... if they have been in close contact with somebody who was symptomatic,&quot; he said. The biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center was activated ahead of the arrivals, with passengers &quot;expected to land in Omaha early Monday morning,&quot; spokesperson Kayla Thomas said in a statement. &quot;One passenger will be transported to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit upon arrival,&quot; Thomas said, because the person &quot;tested positive for the virus but (does) not have symptoms.&quot; The other passengers will go to the National Quarantine Unit for assessment and monitoring, Thomas added. Following this assessment and depending on the estimated risk, passengers will be allowed &quot;to stay in Nebraska if they&#39;d like, or if they want to go back home, and their home situation allows it, to safely drive them home without exposing other people on the way,&quot; Bhattacharya said. In either case, passengers will remain under observation for several weeks by health authorities to ensure they do not develop symptoms, he said, as happened with seven other Americans who left the ship earlier in the journey. According to the CDC, &quot;people are generally only contagious when they exhibit symptoms.&quot; Bhattacharya said the same protocol was followed during a 2018 outbreak &quot;of this exact strain of the hantavirus,&quot; which was successfully contained. Responding to criticism that there has been limited communication from US health authorities about the hantavirus risk six years after the Covid-19 pandemic he said the situations were not comparable. &quot;If the threat level were higher, then we would have obviously reacted differently,&quot; Bhattacharya said. &quot;This is not Covid,&quot; he said. &quot;We shouldn&#39;t be panicking when the evidence doesn&#39;t warrant it.&quot;

British Nationals, repatriated after a prolonged stay on a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak, arrive by coach at Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral, north west England, on May 10, 2026, where they are expected to stay for up to 72 hours.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief says Americans evacuated from the MV Hondius after a deadly hantavirus outbreak are unlikely to face mandatory quarantine, stressing that the virus poses limited risk and 'is not Covid.'

Americans from virus-hit ship will not necessarily be quarantined: Official 

GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) said Saturday it considered everyone on board a cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak as &quot;high-risk&quot; contacts who should be actively monitored for 42 days. There are nearly 150 people on board the MV Hondius at the centre of the outbreak that has killed three people, which is heading towards the waters off Tenerife. &quot;We classify everybody on board as what we call a high-risk contact,&quot; WHO&#39;s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director Maria Van Kerkhove told a social media event. Currently, &quot;there&#39;s nobody on board that has any symptoms&quot;, she said, adding though that &quot;active monitoring and follow-up of all the passengers and crew who disembark for a 42-day period&quot; was recommended. Van Kerkove stressed that the risk to the general public and to the people of the Canary Islands, where the Hondius is expected to anchor on Sunday, remained &quot;low&quot;. Three passengers from the ship &ndash; a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman &ndash; have died, out of eight confirmed and suspected cases of the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents. The only hantavirus type that can transmit from person to person &ndash; the Andes virus &ndash; has been confirmed among the six cases who have tested positive, fueling international concern. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is heading to Tenerife to help coordinate the evacuation. Van Kerkhove said the United Nations health agency was coordinating with member states &ndash; in particular Spain and the Netherlands, the ship&#39;s operator, and experts around the world on the best way forward. On Saturday, WHO had briefed countries with nationals on board the ship about the plans for &quot;safe and dignified disembarkment&quot;, she said. The idea, she said, was for anyone who might be showing symptoms to &quot;immediately go to a medical evacuation plane and be taken to the Netherlands for care&quot;. Countries were organizing planes to take all those without symptoms back home, with some countries, like the United States and Canada, discussing sharing a plane, Van Kerkhove said. Everyone coming off the ship would meanwhile need to be monitored for 42 days, starting from their last point of exposure with a confirmed or suspected hantavirus case, she said. That means, she said, &quot;the clock has already started ticking&quot;.

Members of the Spanish Civil Guard wait for the arrival of the Cruise MV Hondius at port of Granadilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands on May 9, 2026. (AFP)

WHO advises monitoring all passengers after a deadly cruise ship outbreak, ordering 42-day surveillance and follow-up after disembarkation, while saying public risk to the Canary Islands remains low.

Everyone on hantavirus-hit ship 'high-risk contact', must be monitored: WHO

GENEVA: Countries prepared Friday to repatriate passengers stranded aboard the MV Hondius after a deadly hantavirus outbreak killed three people and sickened several others during the trans-Atlantic cruise. The Dutch-flagged vessel, carrying around 150 people, is expected to arrive off Tenerife in Spain&rsquo;s Canary Islands on Sunday. Special flights will then take passengers to their home countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the outbreak posed a minimal risk to the general public despite confirmation of the Andes virus strain, the only hantavirus known to spread from person to person. Three passengers &mdash; a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman &mdash; have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents. &ldquo;This is a dangerous virus, but only to the person who&#39;s really infected, and the risk to the general population remains absolutely low,&rdquo; WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters. &ldquo;The virus is not that contagious that it easily jumps from person to person,&rdquo; he added. The WHO said Friday there were five confirmed and three suspected cases of the virus, with an update due later. There are no suspected cases remaining on the ship. A KLM flight attendant who came into contact with an infected passenger and later showed mild symptoms tested negative for hantavirus, the WHO said. The infected passenger &mdash; the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak &mdash; had briefly boarded a Johannesburg-to-Netherlands flight on April 25 before being removed prior to takeoff. She died the following day in a Johannesburg hospital. Spanish authorities said a woman seated two rows behind the infected passenger on that flight was also being tested for hantavirus after developing symptoms in eastern Spain. She is in isolation in hospital. The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde. Three suspected cases, including two crew members who later tested positive, were evacuated from Cape Verde to the Netherlands. German authorities said Friday the third person tested negative but would remain under observation. Two Dutch healthcare workers &mdash; an expert from the European Centres for Disease Control and a WHO representative &mdash; are now aboard the ship conducting a risk assessment. Spanish authorities said the ship will anchor off Tenerife and will not be allowed to dock. Passengers will be transferred to shore on a smaller vessel before being taken by bus to the airport. The evacuation must take place between Sunday and Monday due to likely adverse weather conditions afterward, the Canarian regional government said. Dockworkers in Tenerife protested Friday against the ship&rsquo;s arrival. British health authorities also said Friday there was a suspected case on Tristan da Cunha, one of the world&rsquo;s most isolated settlements with around 220 people.

A bank vole (Myodes glareolus), also known as the forest vole, is a small rodent that can transmit hantavirus, which is dangerous to humans. (AFP)

Countries are preparing to repatriate passengers from the MV Hondius after a deadly hantavirus outbreak killed three people and infected several others during the cruise across the Atlantic Ocean.

Passengers to be repatriated after deadly hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Friday that the risk to the public of a deadly hantavirus strain in a cruise ship outbreak was minimal, as it spreads only through &quot;very close contact&quot;. &quot;This is a dangerous virus, but only to the person who&#39;s really infected, and the risk to the general population remains absolutely low,&quot; WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva. He pointed out that even people who had stayed in the same cabins on the stricken MV Hondius cruise ship &quot;don&#39;t seem to be both infected in some cases&quot;. The spokesman insisted that the disease was &quot;not spreading anything close to how Covid was spreading&quot;. &quot;The contact tracing is effective because it traces those who have been in close contact,&quot; he said. The ship left Ushuaia on the southern tip of Argentina on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde, stopping at several remote islands along the way.

This handhout photograph taken and released on May 7, 2026 by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (R) speaking with WHO Health Emergencies Programme executive director Chikwe Ihekweazu prior to a virtu

Says the public risk from the deadly hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius is very low because the virus spreads only through very close contact.

Hantavirus outbreak risk to public 'absolutely low': WHO

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Thursday that more hantavirus cases could emerge after the disease killed three passengers from a cruise ship, but it expected the outbreak to be limited if precautions were taken.&nbsp;Another sick passenger from the MV Hondius landed in Europe earlier in the day, as the vessel headed to the Spanish Canary Islands and health officials scrambled to map the outbreak of the potentially deadly human-to-human strain.&nbsp;The fate of the Hondius sparked international alarm after three people travelling on it died, though health officials have played down fears of a wider global outbreak from the rat-borne virus, which is less contagious than Covid-19.&nbsp;WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists in Geneva that five confirmed and three suspected cases had been reported overall, including the three deaths.&nbsp;&quot;Given the incubation period of the Andes virus, which can be up to six weeks, it&#39;s possible that more cases may be reported,&quot; he said, referring to the rare strain detected aboard the Hondius, which can be transmitted between humans.&nbsp;The Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands later announced another patient had tested positive.&nbsp;But the WHO&#39;s emergency alert and response director Abdi Rahman Mahamud insisted: &quot;We believe this will be a limited outbreak if the public health measures are implemented and solidarity shown across all countries.&quot;&nbsp;People thought or known to have contracted the virus are being treated or isolating in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and South Africa.&nbsp;Rare diseaseHantavirus is a rare respiratory disease that is usually spread from infected rodents and can cause respiratory and cardiac distress as well as haemorrhagic fevers. There are no vaccines and no known cure.&nbsp;A passenger is thought to have contracted the virus before boarding the ship in Argentina and eventually infected others on board as it sailed across the Atlantic.&nbsp;Three evacuees were whisked away from the ship on Wednesday when it anchored off Cape Verde and a fourth landed on Thursday in Amsterdam, said the vessel&#39;s operator, Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions.&nbsp;&quot;No symptomatic individuals are present on board&quot; the ship at the moment, as it sails toward the Spanish island of Tenerife, it said in a statement.&nbsp;The ship is scheduled to arrive there on Sunday and those on board will be evacuated.&nbsp;Oceanwide Expeditions said there were 149 people on the ship, including 88 passengers.&nbsp;Officials in Argentina said they planned to test rodents in the coastal city of Ushuaia, from where the ship had set sail on April 1.&nbsp;First caseA Dutch man who had boarded in Ushuaia along with his wife died aboard the ship on April 11.&nbsp;The man&#39;s body was taken off the ship on April 24 in Saint Helena, an island in the south Atlantic where 29 other passengers disembarked, the ship&#39;s operator said.&nbsp;It said it was working to trace all passengers and crew who got on or off the ship since March 20.&nbsp;Tedros said the WHO had informed 12 countries that their nationals disembarked from the cruise ship on Saint Helena.&nbsp;The Saint Helena government said &quot;more than 95 percent&quot; of the population had no close contact with the ship&#39;s passengers or crew, or boarded the vessel, and are currently &quot;at an extremely low risk of infection&quot;.&nbsp;The deceased man&#39;s wife -- who left the ship to accompany his body to South Africa -- died there 15 days later after also falling ill, with hantavirus confirmed as the cause on May 4.&nbsp;The couple had visited Chile, Uruguay and Argentina before the cruise, Argentine officials said.&nbsp;Chile&#39;s health ministry said the two passengers who died were not infected in that country as they travelled there at &quot;a period that does not correspond to the incubation time&quot;.&nbsp;According to the WHO, the incubation period for hantavirus can be up to six weeks.&nbsp;The Dutch woman had flown on a commercial plane from the island of Saint Helena to Johannesburg while she was showing symptoms.&nbsp;Officials were trying to trace people on that flight, which South African-based carrier Airlink said was carrying 82 passengers and six crew.&nbsp;A German passenger died on May 2. Her body remains on the ship.

WHO warns more hantavirus cases may emerge after three cruise passengers died aboard MV Hondius, but expects a limited outbreak if precautions hold, with additional confirmed and suspected infections across several countries amid ongoing probes.

Articles tagged with "hantavirus"

Hondius captain to leave hantavirus ship: WHO

Passenger from hantavirus cruise quarantines on remote Pitcairn Island

France locks down 1,700 on cruise ship after 90-year-old dies

Argentina’s deadly hantavirus memories resurface after cruise ship outbreak

US, French nationals from hantavirus ship test positive

Americans from virus-hit ship will not necessarily be quarantined: Official

Everyone on hantavirus-hit ship 'high-risk contact', must be monitored: WHO

Passengers to be repatriated after deadly hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship

Hantavirus outbreak risk to public 'absolutely low': WHO

WHO warns of more hantavirus cases in 'limited' outbreak

Hondius captain to leave hantavirus ship: WHO