Health officials are investigating a suspected hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius after three passenger deaths and several illnesses.
A suspected hantavirus outbreak aboard the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius has left three passengers dead and at least three others ill, while the vessel remains under public health precautions near Cape Verde, according to the World Health Organization, South African health officials and the ship’s operator.
The WHO has said at least one linked hantavirus infection has been confirmed through laboratory testing and five more cases are suspected. The cause of every death has not been publicly confirmed, and officials say additional testing, epidemiological work and virus sequencing are still underway.
The ship was carrying 149 people from 23 nationalities, including 88 passengers and 61 crew members, Oceanwide Expeditions said. Seventeen passengers are Americans. Cape Verde authorities have not allowed people to leave the ship and, for now, have said it will not be permitted to dock because of public health concerns.
The Hondius left Argentina about three weeks earlier on a voyage that included Antarctica, the Falkland Islands and other stops before a planned route toward Spain’s Canary Islands, South Africa’s Department of Health said.
The first passenger who died was a 70-year-old Dutch man whose body was removed in Saint Helena, a British territory in the South Atlantic. Oceanwide Expeditions said he died on April 11 and that his cause of death could not be determined on board. His wife later collapsed at an airport in South Africa while trying to return to the Netherlands and died at a nearby hospital, South African officials said.
A third passenger, identified by the operator as a German national, died on May 2. The company said that passenger’s body remained on the ship. Oceanwide Expeditions has said the person in intensive care in Johannesburg so far has the only confirmed hantavirus case linked to the cruise.
The patient in intensive care is a British national who fell ill near Ascension Island after the ship left Saint Helena and was transferred to South Africa, according to South Africa’s health department. The WHO said it was also working with authorities to evacuate two symptomatic people from the ship. Oceanwide Expeditions said the two sick people still on board were crew members with respiratory symptoms who needed urgent medical care.
Cape Verde has sent medical staff to the vessel, including doctors, a nurse and a laboratory specialist, according to a WHO official in Cape Verde. Planning was underway for possible medical evacuations, and the Dutch Foreign Ministry was also looking into evacuating some people from the ship.
WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge said, "The risk to the wider public remains low. There is no need for panic or travel restrictions."
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses found around the world and spread mainly through contact with infected rodents or their urine or feces. The WHO has said person-to-person spread can occur rarely. The viruses can cause severe illness, including respiratory disease, and there is no specific treatment or cure, though early medical attention can improve survival chances.
Oceanwide Expeditions said strict precautions are in place aboard the Hondius, including isolation, hygiene protocols and medical monitoring. South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases is conducting contact tracing in the Johannesburg region to determine whether anyone else may have been exposed. The next key updates are expected from laboratory testing, evacuation decisions and the WHO-backed risk assessment now underway.
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