{"id":221303,"date":"2026-05-05T23:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/221303\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T23:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:35:12","slug":"cruise-ship-struck-by-hantavirus-is-to-head-to-canary-islands-w-h-o-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/221303\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruise Ship Struck by Hantavirus Is to Head to Canary Islands, W.H.O. Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A cruise ship struck by a deadly outbreak<\/a> of the hantavirus is expected to sail to the Canary Islands, where the Spanish government will receive the vessel, the country\u2019s health ministry said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization said that some of those who had fallen ill may have been infected through human-to-human transmission, cautioning nonetheless that a full investigation was still needed and that human-to-human transmission remained rare.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk to the general public is low,\u201d Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the W.H.O.\u2019s head of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said at a news conference in Geneva.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a virus that spreads like flu or like Covid,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s quite different.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ship, the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, has been moored off the coast of Cape Verde, an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa, in recent days as government and health authorities scramble to find a way to evacuate sick people onboard. The outbreak of hantavirus, a rare pathogen<\/a>, has been tied to seven people on the ship so far, according to the W.H.O., with two confirmed cases and five suspected ones. Three people have died.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do know that some of the cases had very close contact with each other and certainly human-to-human transmission can\u2019t be ruled out,\u201d Dr. Van Kerkhove told reporters. Two of the victims, a Dutch couple, had been traveling in South America before boarding the ship and were sharing a cabin, she noted.<\/p>\n

Hantavirus is primarily transmitted to humans by inhaling particles of mouse feces or urine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr. Van Kerkhove said at the news conference that the ship would head to the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory that is about 1,000 miles northeast of Cape Verde.<\/p>\n

The Spanish Health Ministry said on Tuesday that the ship was expected to arrive there within three to four days, and that it was not yet decided which port the cruise would arrive at. Once the ship reaches the Canary Islands, the ministry added, the crew and passengers will be examined, treated and transferred to their respective countries. Before the ship departs for the Canary Islands, the authorities will determine which passengers need to be urgently evacuated while still in Cape Verde. The ship\u2019s doctor, who the ministry said was in \u201cserious condition,\u201d will be evacuated on Tuesday on a medical flight to the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n

The MV Hondius departed from Argentina in early April with about 150 passengers and crew members. Officials from Cape Verde did not allow passengers to disembark, Oceanwide Expeditions, the vessel\u2019s operator, said in a statement<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an isolated situation, confined to the vessel, posing no risk to national territory,\u201d \u00c2ngela Gomes, Cape Verde\u2019s national director of health, told local news outlets.<\/p>\n

The W.H.O. said that medical teams from Cape Verde had boarded the ship and recommended that all passengers remain in their cabins.<\/p>\n

The first fatality was a 70-year-old Dutch man who died onboard the ship on April 11. The man\u2019s 69-year-old wife became ill and died on April 26 in Johannesburg, South Africa, while attempting to fly home to the Netherlands. The W.H.O. said that it was working to trace other passengers on a flight the woman took from St. Helena, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, to Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

A third person, a German national, died on the ship on Saturday. Oceanwide Expeditions said it was working to evacuate an individual \u201cassociated with\u201d that victim, along with two people in need of urgent care. The company said on Tuesday<\/a> that the people would be taken to the Netherlands and that once they were en route, the ship would proceed to the Canary Islands, a three-day trip.<\/p>\n

For now, investigators are assuming that the cases involve the so-called Andes species of the virus, which has been known to cause some human-to-human transmission in close contact, Dr. Van Kerkhove said. Epidemiologists in South Africa and Senegal were working to identify the remaining cases, she said.<\/p>\n

A British citizen who was hospitalized in Johannesburg after falling ill on the ship is improving, Dr. Van Kerkhove said.<\/p>\n

Hantavirus<\/a> refers to a family of viruses that are carried by rodents. The illness caused by the virus can cause flulike symptoms and is fatal in nearly four in 10 people.<\/p>\n

With symptoms appearing up to eight weeks after initial exposure, health officials are trying to identify the source of the cruise ship outbreak.<\/p>\n

The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1, making stops in \u201cremote and ecologically diverse\u201d regions like mainland Antarctica, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extent of passenger contact with local wildlife during the voyage or prior to boarding in Ushuaia remains undetermined,\u201d the W.H.O. said.<\/p>\n

Jake Rosmarin, a travel influencer who is onboard the MV Hondius, said in a social media post on Monday that the uncertainty on the ship was weighing heavily on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s happening right now is very real for all of us here,\u201d he said in a tearful video. \u201cAll we want right now is to feel safe, to have clarity and to get home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlos Barrag\u00e1n contributed reporting from Madrid, Pranav Baskar from New York and Saikou Jammeh from Dakar, Senegal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cruise ship struck by a deadly outbreak of the hantavirus is expected to sail to the Canary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[87205,87204,16004,86145,9,11,10,86673,49126],"class_list":["post-221303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-canary-islands","tag-cape-verde","tag-cruises","tag-hantavirus","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-oceanwide-expeditions-bv","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}