90-Second Read: Hantavirus cruise: WHO Director-General will travel to Tenerife for disembarkment; repatriation flights planned on Sunday and Monday

A cluster of Hantavirus cases struck the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius as it traveled across the southern Atlantic, stopping at a number of destinations along the way. On May 9, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), shared a message with the residents of the Spanish island of Tenerife, where MV Hondius is anticipated to make port Sunday (May 10). In the live social media update on Saturday, Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO said plans are in place to disembark the remaining passengers and crew from MV Hondius on Sunday, and that repatriation flights are planned to start transporting people home Sunday and Monday. Take a look back at our coverage from May 7 and May 8 of the Hantavirus cases on board the.

On May 7, the Georgia Department of Public Health told Live Science via email that it is "monitoring two Georgia residents who returned home after disembarking from the MV Hondius, the cruise ship at the center of a Hantavirus outbreak. Argentina's ministry of health reported on May 5 that there have been 101 confirmed Hantavirus cases since June 2025, according to the Associated Press (AP). Nebraska Medicine and UNMC [University of Nebraska Medical Center] remain in close coordination with national partners regarding the evolving situation with the Hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship," Nebraska Medicine said in a statement. While most Hantaviruses cannot pass between people, one specific type, known as the Andes virus, can. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control reported 1,885 confirmed cases of.

Hantavirus infections in humans are relatively uncommon, but when they do occur, they can be dangerous, with fatality rates ranging between 1% and 50% depending on the type of Hantavirus. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the news conference that the WHO is working with health authorities in Argentina to investigate where the first two people to contract the virus got infected. They will then undergo phone surveillance for the remaining monitoring period of 45 days from the date of last exposure, which is the maximum incubation period for Hantavirus exposure." The agency says the risk to the general public in Singapore is low. The current public health risk from Hantavirus remains low. It's that close, intimate contact that we've seen, and most Hantaviruses don't transmit between people.

Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have been working on Hantavirus vaccines since the 1980s, virologist Jay Hooper told Nature News. In a live social media update on Saturday, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's interim director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, clarified that the number of confirmed and suspected Hantavirus cases associated with MV Hondius is still eight. The WHO recommends that contacts be monitored for six weeks, as the incubation period, the time between when someone is exposed to the virus and when symptoms begin, of Hantavirus infections can be that long. As of yet, there's "no indication" that there's anything particularly unusual about the Hantaviruses themselves, but it is notable that the outbreak is taking place on a cruise ship, said Anaïs Legand, the WHO's.