WHO Says Two Hantavirus Cases Confirmed, Five Suspected on Cruise Ship

GENEVA: Two cases of hantavirus have been confirmed among people on a cruise ship stranded off the coast of Cape Verde, with five others among whom three people are suspected to have died, the WHO said on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization said it was trying to contact one of the sick cruise ship passengers taken between Saint Helena and Johannesburg on April 25, who died the next day.

“As of May 4, 2026, seven cases (two laboratory-confirmed cases of hantavirus and five suspected cases) have been detected, including three deaths, one critically ill patient and three individuals reporting mild symptoms,” the United Nations health agency said in a statement. he said.

WHO said the “onset of the disease occurred between 6 and 28 April 2026” during the cruise traveling from Ushuaia in Argentina to the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa.

It was stated that the disease is “characterized by fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, rapid progression towards pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and shock” and that “further examinations are ongoing”.

WHO emphasized that it assessed the risk of the epidemic to the global population as “low” and added that it would continue to monitor the situation.

There were 23 nationalities on board the MV Hondius, which the World Health Organization said was currently carrying 147 people, including passengers from Britain, Spain and the United States, as well as crew from the Philippines.

The ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said in a statement that a British passenger was in intensive care in Johannesburg and two crew members, one British and one Dutch, needed “urgent medical attention”.

Three of the detected cases were no longer on the ship, and four remained on the ship, including a German who died on Saturday.

The operator said the first to die among the passengers were a Dutch couple, a husband who died on board on April 11, and his wife, who died after getting off the boat at St Helena to accompany his body.

The woman, who left the ship with her deceased husband on April 24, experienced “gastrointestinal symptoms”, WHO said.

“His condition then deteriorated during his flight to Johannesburg, South Africa on April 25,” it said, adding that “he later died upon arrival at the emergency room on April 26.”

“On May 4, the case was later confirmed to have hantavirus infection by PCR,” it was stated, and it was emphasized that “contact tracing was initiated for the passengers on the flight.”

The World Health Organization said human hantavirus infection is a rare but serious and potentially fatal disease transmitted primarily through contact with the urine, feces or saliva of infected rodents.

However, human-to-human transmission has also been reported in previous epidemics.