90-Second Read: Hantavirus: How it differs from COVID

With memories of the COVID pandemic still fresh in many people's minds, it's understandable that communities are worried about Hantavirus spreading internationally. But there is a significant difference between COVID and Hantavirus. An analysis of a Hantavirus outbreak in Argentina in November 2018, indicates just how effectively even basic control measures, such as social distancing, slow the spread of infection from person-to-person. In 2018-2019, the Andes virus Hantavirus spread person-to-person in Argentina. The cruise ship MV Hondius, on which Hantavirus spread and killed three people and infected others from April to May, was about to dock at Tenerife's Granadilla Port.

Hantavirus, on the other hand, has been known since 1993. And because it is known to cause a lung infection called Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), appropriate distancing measures were put in place on the ship, once laboratory tests confirmed it had caused the first two deaths. After the first person died on April 11, Oceanwide Expeditions, which runs the ship, said it was May 4, more than three weeks, before Hantavirus was confirmed as the cause of death. I know that when you hear the word 'outbreak' and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. We did not have that knowledge about COVID when it started, in fact, to this day, we still don't know exactly where it started.

I know you are worried," wrote Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), in a letter to the people of Tenerife, Spain, on May 9, 2026. From there, passengers and crew (total 147 people) were to be repatriated to their home countries, including Germany, France and Australia. When the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus arose in 2019 and caused COVID, neither public health scientists nor healthcare workers had ever seen it before. Generally, Hantavirus infections are relatively uncommon globally. Analysis of that outbreak shows the current one can also be stopped.

To play this audio please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 audio Control measures were enforced after authorities confirmed 18 people had been infected with Andes virus at a mass gathering. While the number of known cases, at time of writing on May 11, 2026, is fewer at seven confirmed and two suspected cases, it did take longer for control measures to be enforced. No one knew what it was, how fast it would spread, how to stop or treat it. The median reproductive number (the number of secondary cases caused by an infected person during the infectious period) was 2.12 before the control measures were enforced and decreased to 0.96 after the measures were implemented." The situation on the MV Hondius was different..