• World Health Organisation says risk to public remains low; no rodent presence reported
• Seven confirmed or suspected cases reported aboard MV Hondius
LONDON: The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday that it suspects some rare human-to-human transmission of the deadly hantavirus took place between very close contacts on board a luxury cruise ship hit by seven confirmed or suspected cases.
Human-to-human transmission is not common, and the UN health agency reiterated that the risk to the wider public was low from a disease typically spread from contact with infected rodents.
A Dutch couple and a German national have died, while a British national was evacuated from the ship and is in intensive care in South Africa, officials said. Two crew members require urgent medical care, said the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions. Another person on board with a suspected case has only reported a mild fever.
The Dutch foreign ministry said it was preparing the medical evacuation of three people to the Netherlands. It was not yet clear when or where the nearly 150 other people still on board would disembark.
The cruise ship hit by the deadly outbreak is moored off Cape Verde. The island nation in the Atlantic off West Africa was meant to be its final destination but it has not allowed the vessel to put passengers ashore because of the outbreak.
People are usually infected by hantavirus through contact with infected rodents or their urine, their droppings or their saliva.
However, a limited spread among close contacts has been observed in some previous outbreaks with the Andes strain, which spreads in South America, including Argentina, and which the WHO believes could be involved in this instance. Testing is under way. The Hondius left Ushuaia in southern Argentina in March.
The WHO said it had been told there were no rats on board.
“We do believe that there may be some human-to-human transmission that’s happening among the really close contacts, the husband and wife, people who have shared cabins,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the WHO, told reporters in Geneva.
Van Kerkhove said the focus was now to evacuate the two sick passengers still onboard and then for the ship to continue to the Canary Islands.
“We have heard from quite a few people on the boat,” Van Kerkhove said earlier. “We just want you to know we are working with the ship’s operators. We are working with the countries where you are from. We hear you, we know that you are scared,” she said, adding that they were working hard to get people home safely.
The Hondius is carrying mostly British, American and Spanish passengers on a luxury cruise that set off from the southern tip of Argentina in late March. The cruise visited the Antarctic peninsula and South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha — some of the remotest islands on the planet.
The voyage was marketed as an Antarctic nature expedition, with berth prices ranging from $16,000 to $25,000.
The first stricken passenger, the Dutch man, died on April 11. His body remained on board until April 24, when it “was disembarked on St Helena, with his wife accompanying the repatriation”, Oceanwide Expeditions said.
His wife, who had gastrointestinal symptoms when she was disembarked, later deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg. She died upon arrival at the emergency department on April 26, the WHO said, adding that contact tracing was under way for passengers on that flight.
Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2026
