90-Second Read: Hantavirus Cruise Ship: 7 Now Have Tested Positive—Including 1 American (Live)

France's Health Minister Stéphanie Rist says a woman, among five French nationals evacuated from the vessel, has tested positive for the Hantavirus and all five people will be put under isolation in Paris. He insisted the public health risk remains "low." A Dutch flight attendant who has developed mild symptoms is being tested for the disease after she briefly came into contact with one of the deceased Hantavirus patients. Most people will never be exposed to this." The World Health Organization confirms the number of lab-proven Hantavirus cases has risen to five and there are still at least three additional suspected cases among cruise ship passengers and crew. Thursday, May 7, 2026 President Donald Trump tells reporters the Hantavirus outbreak is "very much" under control and "it should be fine,".

May 6, 2026 The CDC reportedly tells employees Luis Rodríguez, the American official responsible for public health on cruise ships, is retiring. The South African Department of Health says tests performed on infected passengers of the the MV Hondius confirm the Andes virus, one of the deadliest Hantavirus diseases with a roughly 40% case fatality rate, is what infected passengers onboard the ship. May 4, 2026 The World Health Organization ⁠confirms a strain of Hantavirus is spreading aboard the ship, with two lab-confirmed cases and five more suspected cases. Two residents of Singapore who were onboard the cruise ship during the outbreak and were on the same flight as the patient who later died have tested negative for ⁠the virus, Singaporean officials say. An international team of scientists is working.

One of the 17 American evacuees tested positive while another is showing mild symptoms, the HHS said. CNN cites unnamed health officials in reporting the estimated 17 Americans onboard the cruise ship will be escorted on a charter flight and taken to the National Quarantine Unit, a federally funded quarantine facility in Omaha. Jeanne Marrazzo, CEO of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, says the United States is " not prepared " to handle a Hantavirus outbreak after Trump-era cuts to the CDC and USAID, as well as the country's withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Health officials confirm the deadly Hantavirus outbreak is of a particular disease strain called Andes, one of the deadliest variants of the Hantavirus and the only known strain that transmits from person to person..

Argentine officials suggested the Hantavirus outbreak could have originated from a bird-watching outing that took the deceased Dutch couple to a landfill, where they may have been exposed to rodents carrying the virus before boarding the ship, the Associated Press reported. She was confirmed to have had a variant of the Hantavirus. Andes is the only Hantavirus strain known to be transmitted person to person. People typically get Hantavirus from contact with rodents like rats and mice, normally when exposed to their urine, droppings and saliva, or sometimes through a bite or scratch, but officials say no rodents have been found on the MV Hondius ship. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says symptoms of Hantavirus usually emerge within a week or two, but can take up to eight weeks.