90-Second Read: U.S. Passenger And French Woman Test Positive For Hantavirus After Evacuation From Cruise Ship (Latest Updates)

France's Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said a woman, who is among five French nationals evacuated from the vessel, has tested positive for the Hantavirus. Oceanwide Expeditions, operator of the cruise ship MV Hondius, says at least 29 living passengers from 12 countries disembarked the ship and went home after the death of the first passenger on board (before officials knew of the outbreak). 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. 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 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. A passenger who was aboard the MV Hondius before disembarking several weeks into the journey told the BBC the operator of the cruise ship "didn't inform us about any potential viruses" after the death of the ship's first passenger amid the outbreak. Thursday, May 7, 2026 President Donald Trump tells reporters the Hantavirus outbreak is "very much" under control and "it should be.

Rist said the woman started feeling unwell on Sunday night after the evacuation and has now tested positive. The passengers and a "limited number" of crew members onboard the MV Hondius began disembarking at the port of Granadilla, Spain, on Sunday morning, cruise ship operators said, beginning at 6:24 a.m. Meanwhile, British Army paratroopers parachuted with medical supplies and clinicians down to Tristan da Cunha, the remote British island territory in the South Atlantic where a man who was a former passenger on the ship remains in isolation after developing symptoms of the virus. 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..

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. 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. 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. People typically get Hantavirus from contact with rodents like rats and mice, normally when exposed to their urine, droppings.