{"id":417130,"date":"2026-05-08T00:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/417130\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T00:41:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:41:21","slug":"kiwi-among-dozens-who-left-ship-before-hantavirus-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/417130\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwi among dozens who left ship before hantavirus confirmed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New Zealander was among a group of passengers who disembarked a hantavirus-stricken cruise<\/a> ship before its deadly outbreak was detected, the World Health Organization says. <\/p>\n

Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring passengers who disembarked the MV Hondius on the South Atlantic Island of Saint Helena, and trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.<\/p>\n

In Argentina, a team of investigators tasked with determining the origins of the outbreak<\/a> had yet to leave for the southern town they suspect is where a Dutch couple contracted the virus while on a bird-watching trip, officials from the country’s Health Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday.<\/p>\n

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died<\/a> on board, 30 people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, the ship\u2019s operator and Dutch officials said.<\/p>\n

In a briefing, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a New Zealander was among them.<\/p>\n

Oceanwide Expeditions, the ship’s operator, also said one New Zealander was among the 30 passengers who disembarked.<\/p>\n

Footage showed health workers in protective gear evacuating three people, including the ship’s doctor.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Others were from Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, T\u00fcrkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it was in contact with a New Zealander<\/a> aboard the MV Hondius. They had not requested consular assistance.<\/p>\n

1News has approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to clarify how many New Zealanders had been on board the ship. <\/p>\n

Three passengers have died in the outbreak<\/a> \u2014 a Dutch couple and a German national \u2014 and several others are sick. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.<\/p>\n

None of the remaining passengers or crew on the ship is currently symptomatic, the Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions cruise ship company said Thursday.<\/p>\n

The WHO 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe this will be a limited outbreak if the public health measures are implemented and solidarity is shown across all countries,\u201d said Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, the WHO’s alert and response director.<\/p>\n

Ministry of Health not aware of anyone with virus in NZ <\/p>\n

In a statement to 1News, Dr Corina Grey, the director of public health at the Ministry of Health, said: “At this stage, we are not aware of any people who have been exposed to Hantavirus who are in New Zealand.” <\/p>\n

Grey said the ministry was working with the WHO and other countries to monitor the situation. <\/p>\n

“We have robust public health measures at the border to be able to respond to anyone who may have been exposed to Hantavirus if required.”<\/p>\n

First hantavirus case on board was confirmed May 2<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The MV Hondius cruise ship is anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Three people, including the ship\u2019s doctor, were evacuated<\/a> while the ship was near the West African island country of Cape Verde and taken to specialised hospitals in Europe for treatment.<\/p>\n

The body of the Dutch man who was the first to die on board on April 11 was taken off the ship on the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena on April 24, when his wife also disembarked. She then flew to South Africa a day later and died there.<\/p>\n

The ship’s operator said that a total of 30 passengers \u2014 including the deceased Dutch man and his wife \u2014 left the vessel at St Helena. The Dutch Foreign Ministry has put the figure at about 40. The company had not previously said publicly that dozens more people left the ship on April 24.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger on the ship, the WHO says. That was a British man evacuated from the ship to South Africa three days after the St Helena stop. He was tested in South Africa and is in intensive care there.<\/p>\n

Passengers who disembarked on April 24 are being monitored<\/p>\n

Footage from aboard the ship shows deserted decks and gathering areas, medical teams in protective gear, and a still landscape ahead. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

It emerged Wednesday that a man tested positive for hantavirus in Switzerland after he disembarked at St Helena, though his precise movements in between aren\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Singaporean health authorities said they were monitoring two men who disembarked from the ship at St Helena, flew to South Africa, and then returned home. The two men, who arrived in Singapore at different times, were being isolated and tested, officials said.<\/p>\n

Authorities in St Helena, the volcanic British territory in the South Atlantic where passengers disembarked, said they were monitoring a small number of people who were considered \u201chigher risk contacts\u201d. Those higher-risk contacts were being told to isolate for 45 days, the St Helena Government said.<\/p>\n

South Africa is tracing contacts from an April 25 flight<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The MV Hondius cruise ship is anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The Dutch health ministry said that a flight attendant on a plane briefly boarded by an infected cruise passenger in South Africa was showing symptoms of hantavirus and would be tested in an isolation ward at a hospital in Amsterdam. The cruise passenger, also a Dutch woman, was too ill to fly and was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.<\/p>\n

If the woman tests positive, she could be the first known person not on the MV Hondius to become infected in the outbreak.<\/p>\n

The vessel is now sailing to Spain\u2019s Canary Islands, where it is expected to arrive on Saturday or Sunday, with more than 140 passengers and crew members still on board.<\/p>\n

Director-General Ghebreyesus said that he had been in regular touch with the ship’s captain, and that morale improved once it began moving again.<\/p>\n

Authorities in South Africa are also trying to trace the contacts of any passengers who previously got off the ship. They have focused mainly on an April 25 flight from St Helena to Johannesburg, the day after passengers disembarked there.<\/p>\n

A French citizen with \u201cbenign symptoms\u201d is in isolation and undergoing medical tests, after being identified as a contact case linked to the ship passenger who flew April 25 from St Helena to Johannesburg and was confirmed to have hantavirus, the French Health Ministry said in a statement Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Dutch woman from the cruise ship who later died in South Africa briefly boarded that flight, officials have said. It’s not known how many other cruise passengers were also among the 88 people on it, but flights from St Helena go to South Africa and are rare, normally once a week.<\/p>\n

The body of the third fatality, a German woman, is also still on board the ship after she died on May 2.<\/p>\n

Unlike other hantaviruses, Andes virus may spread between people<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An ambulance evacuates patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship to the airport in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Tests have confirmed that at least five people who were on the ship were infected with a hantavirus found in South America, called the Andes virus. The only hantavirus thought to spread from human to human can cause a severe and often fatal lung disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.<\/p>\n

The ship departed from Argentina, and investigations into the outbreak\u2019s source are focusing there.<\/p>\n

The Dutch couple that presented the first two cases had travelled through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a bird-watching trip before boarding the ship, the WHO said. They visited sites where the species of rat known to carry Andes virus was present.<\/p>\n

Argentina\u2019s Health Ministry has zeroed in on the town of Ushuaia in its investigation, but it has yet to dispatch the team, according to a written statement given to AP. Scientists from the state-funded Malbr\u00e1n Institute planned to travel to Ushuaia \u201cin the coming days\u201d, the statement said.<\/p>\n

Once in Ushuaia, a 3.5-hour flight from Argentina\u2019s capital, Buenos Aires, the experts will analyse rodents at the trash heap there to see if they carry the Andes virus, officials said.<\/p>\n

The WHO is working with health authorities in Argentina to understand the couple’s movements and has arranged to ship 2500 diagnostic kits from Argentina to laboratories in five countries.<\/p>\n

Argentina\u2019s 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. Nearly a third of cases last year were fatal, it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New Zealander was among a group of passengers who disembarked a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship before its deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28708,42,134,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-417130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-central-south-america","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}