90-Second Read: Health officials track dozens who left Hantavirus-stricken ship after first fatality

Despite a cruise ship outbreak of a rare rodent-borne illness, global health officials say the risk to the general public remains low because Hantavirus germs do not easily spread between people. It wasn't until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed Hantavirus in a ship passenger, the WHO says. Health workers get off the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, a cruise ship carrying nearly 150 people as it remains off Cape Verde on Monday, May 4, 2026 after three passengers died and several others fell seriously ill in a suspected Hantavirus outbreak. Oceanwide Expeditions has revealed that 30 passengers disembarked from its cruise ship hit by a Hantavirus outbreak on April 24.

Caivano, Nico Deluca and Carlos Antilef) Officials and experts in Argentina are scrambling to determine if their country is the source of a deadly Hantavirus outbreak that has gripped an Atlantic cruise. In Argentina, a team of investigators has yet to leave for the southern town where they suspect the outbreak originated, officials from the country's Health Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday. Argentina's health ministry said there were 28 deaths from Hantavirus last year, up from an average mortality rate of 15 in the five years before that. Caivano, Nico Deluca and Carlos Antilef) Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026.

He died just two hours after a Hantavirus test came back positive. The World Health Organization says the risk to the wider public is low. Hantavirus is usually spread by the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and isn't easily transmitted between people. The only Hantavirus thought to spread human-to-human, it can cause a severe and often fatal lung disease called Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

The body of the third fatality, a German woman, is also still on the ship after she died on May 2. Medical personnel in hazmat suits wait for patients, evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship with suspected Hantavirus infection, at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. Once in Ushuaia, a 3.5-hour flight from Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, experts will analyze rodents at the trash heap there to see if they carry the Andes virus, officials said.