Cruise ship MV Hondius docks off Cape Verde port, as passengers were not allowed off the ship, while health authorities investigated suspected cases of hantavirus aboard the vessel, in Praia Port, Cape Verde, in this screengrab obtained from a video, May 4, 2026. REUTERS TV via REUTERS<\/p>\n
Evacuations\u00a0Planned as Suspected Hantavirus Outbreak Traps 150 on Ship Off Cape Verde<\/p>\n
GENEVA, May 4 (Reuters)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Medics were working on Monday to evacuate two people with symptoms of the\u00a0deadly hantavirus\u00a0after\u00a0a suspected<\/p>\n
on a luxury cruise ship held off West Africa carrying mostly British, American and Spanish passengers, officials said.<\/p>\n
Around 150 people were still stuck on the vessel after three people \u2013 a Dutch couple and a German national \u2013 died, and others fell ill, including a Briton who left the vessel and was being treated in South Africa, authorities added.<\/p>\n
Hantavirus, which can cause fatal respiratory illness, can be spread when particles from rodent droppings or urine become airborne. It does not transfer easily between humans.<\/p>\n
There are ?no specific drugs to treat the disease, so treatment focuses on supportive care, including putting patients on ventilators in severe cases.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization said the risk to the wider public was low and there was no need for panic or travel restrictions. But authorities in the island nation of Cape Verde said they had not allowed Dutch-flagged MV Hondius to dock as a precaution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not just headlines: we\u2019re people with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home,\u201d Jake Rosmarin, a U.S. travel blogger, said in a tearful Instagram video post from the ship on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of uncertainty and that is the hardest part,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u2018STRICT PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES\u2019<\/p>\n
The ship\u2019s Netherlands-based operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said it was looking into whether passengers could be screened and disembarked on the islands of Las Palmas and Tenerife.<\/p>\n
It was trying to arrange the repatriation of two crew members with symptoms of the disease \u2013 one British and one Dutch \u2013 along with the body of the German national and a \u201cguest closely associated with the deceased\u201d who does not have symptoms.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrict precautionary measures are in process on board,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
left Ushuaia in southern Argentina in March, according to company documentation, on a voyage marketed as an Antarctic nature expedition, with berth prices ranging from 14,000 to 22,000 euros ($16,000-$25,000).<\/p>\n
It traveled past mainland Antarctica, the Falklands, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan, St Helena, and Ascension before reaching Cape Verdean waters on May 3.<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s Health Department confirmed two of the dead were Dutch nationals: a 70-year-old man, who died on St Helena on April 11, and his wife, 69, who died in South Africa after collapsing at O.R. Tambo International Airport.<\/p>\n
The British man being treated in a private clinic in Johannesburg became ill on April 27, while the German victim on the ship died on May 2, Oceanwide Expeditions said.<\/p>\n
Hantavirus usually begins with flu-like symptoms, such as fatigue and fever, one to eight weeks after exposure.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Netherlands\u2019 National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), which is assisting with the outbreak, said its source was unclear.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could imagine, for example, that rats on board the ship transmitted the virus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut another possibility is that during a stop somewhere in South America, people were infected, for instance via mice, and became ill that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel Bausch, a Visiting Professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland, said there was some evidence of human-to-human transmission in the Andes Virus, a species of hantavirus found in Argentina and Chile.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s significant that this cruise ship started its journey in Argentina,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good news is \u2026 this is not going to be a big outbreak,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n