Residents of multiple countries, including the United States, are being monitored for hantavirus after traveling on the MV Hondius, an Oceanwide Expeditions cruise ship now tied to several cases of the virus.
As of May 7, five people had been confirmed to have hantavirus, and three others were suspected of contracting it, according to the World Health Organization.
Hantavirus is typically a rodent-borne virus, but officials have confirmed this particular strain to be the Andes virus, which can be transmitted human-to-human. Health authorities in five U.S. states have reported the return of locals who were aboard the ship, but no cases have been documented in America.
The WHO has repeatedly said the risk to the general public is currently considered low and is not calling the outbreak an epidemic. In the organization’s latest briefing, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove explained hantavirus is dramatically different from coronavirus and said it does not spread the same way.
“I want to be unequivocal here: this is not SARS-CoV-2. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic,” she emphasized.
Officials believe the outbreak began when a married couple, Dutch nationals, were infected while they were off the cruise ship, engaging in wildlife expeditions.
Mary Walrath-Holdridge
Health officials in Virginia told USA TODAY on Thursday that they are also monitoring one resident who has since returned home from the MV Hondius. The resident is in good health, Virginia Department of Health spokesperson Maria Reppas said, and is under public health monitoring.
“A small number (less than five) of exposed Virginians might be identified in the days ahead,” said Reppas, who added that the department believes the risk to the general public is low.
Virginia is the fifth state to report the return of locals who were aboard the ship. California, Arizona, Texas and Georgia are also monitoring residents who were passengers, according to their respective health departments.
Zach Wichter
Airline passengers are at very low risk of contracting hantavirus while they fly, experts say.
Amid the current cruise ship outbreak, many travelers are wondering how their own plans may be affected. The good news for flyers is there’s virtually no risk of catching the virus during a plane trip, but for those who are still concerned, some basic precautions can reduce that small risk even more.
“It’s a rare disease and it would be a very rare event,” Nicole Iovine, the chief hospital epidemiologist at University of Florida Health in Gainesville, Florida, told USA TODAY.
Many of the precautions a traveler could take are similar to those that became familiar at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“One would be to wear an N95 mask so that the air they breathe would not contain any of the viral particles that may be suspended in the air, and the second is to practice excellent hand hygiene, and that could be washing hands or using alcohol hand sanitizer,” Iovine said.
Sara Moniuszko
In a press briefing organized by the Infectious Diseases Society of America on May 7, experts shared concerns about what they called the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s lack of information and action on hantavirus.
“A lot of the things that you would like to see, we haven’t seen, and to me, that’s very concerning,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine. “The silence that we’re seeing from our premier public health institution is really concerning to me.”
He explained that the CDC would typically be asked by the WHO to help in “technical assistance” in order “to provide help with tracing, to do interviews, to obtain samples, to do many of the things that are necessary in order to really investigate the outbreak.”
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s chief executive officer, added “we are not prepared.”
“We have seen large scale funding and workforce cuts made in the last year, not just to the [CDC] but to global health. Our withdrawal from WHO, our decimation of USAID, and also cuts to scientific research,” she said. “So all of these things are having really profound ripple effects. This is a situation where you really are seeing crystallized the need for bio preparedness.”
Mary Walrath-Holdridge
Texas health officials are tracking two residents who were passengers on the MV Hondius, the state’s health department said Thursday.
The passengers left the ship and entered the United States before the outbreak was identified, said officials, and have not experienced any symptoms.
Though the residents are believed not to have had contact with an infected person while on the ship, they have agreed to monitor themselves in the coming days, said the health department.
Sara M Moniuszko
There is no specific treatment that cures hantavirus diseases, according to the World Health Organization, but early supportive medical care is “key to improve survival.”
This care includes clinical monitoring and managing any respiratory, cardiac or other complications, the organization says.
Sara M Moniuszko
“At this time, Americans should be aware of hantavirus, but not alarmed,” infectious disease expert Dr. Sukrut Dwivedi of Hackensack Meridian Ocean University Medical Center told USA TODAY.
“The overall risk to the public remains markedly low,” he added. “The Andes strain has shown limited human transmission in South America, which is why it draws attention, but there is no evidence of sustained spread in the United States.”
In the latest World Health Organization briefing, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove explained hantavirus is very different from coronavirus and does not spread the same way.
“I want to be unequivocal here: this is not SARS-CoV-2. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic,” she said. “This is an outbreak that we see on a ship (and) there’s a confined area… But this is not the same situation we were in six years ago.”
In a contained setting like a cruise ship, close quarters can amplify risk, Dwivedi added in a statement.”Health authorities are appropriately emphasizing contact tracing, isolation and monitoring of close contacts,” he said.
Eve Chen
Travelers from a dozen countries disembarked the ship in St. Helena, a British territory in the South Atlantic where Napoleon Bonaparte was famously exiled.
Ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said 30 people disembarked, including a passenger who died on board and is believed to be among the first hantavirus cases. His wife also got off the ship and flew to South Africa. She later died and was confirmed to have hantavirus.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency has informed authorities in the following countries:
The WHO is also working with authorities in South Africa – where an adult male is in intensive care after being medically evacuated from the ship and later confirmed to have hantavirus – and Spain, as the ship heads to the Canary Islands.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, director of the WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Management, said they’ve received reports of potential suspect cases in various countries. “Some of them have had reported links to the ship or passengers on the ship,” she said. “All of those will be followed up with the relevant authorities in each country.”
Eve Chen
The World Health Organization is stressing the “limited” nature of the hantavirus outbreak tied to the MV Hondius.
“This is not the start of an epidemic. This is not the start of a pandemic,” WHO’s Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said in the agency’s May 7 press briefing.
While a number of people around the globe are being monitored for symptoms after either disembarking the ship or coming into contact with people from the ship, WHO officials have repeatedly said the public health risk is low, adding that past human transmission has been primarily among people with close physical contact to infected individuals.
Van Kerkhove said there are no symptomatic patients currently on board the ship, though she and her colleagues acknowledge the virus has a long incubation period.
Asked about risks surrounding passengers and crew now bound for the Canary Islands, Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud, director of WHO’s Health Emergency Alert & Response Operations said the ship is doing everything possible in regard to public health measures and once it docks, “We have (a) clear disembarkation plan that will not add additional risk.”
Natalie Neysa Alund
A woman in the Netherlands, who local media reported is a flight attendant for a commercial airline, was being tested for a possible hantavirus infection, Mischa Stubenitsky, a spokesperson for the Dutch Health Ministry, confirmed to USA TODAY on May 7.
The local outlets reported that the woman works for KLM, an airline that confirmed a cruise passenger who died from hantavirus had traveled on board one of its flights.
When contacted by USA TODAY, the airline said it would not comment about the flight attendant, citing privacy concerns.
Melina Khan
Hantavirus is the same infection that killed Betsy Arakawa, the wife of late actor Gene Hackman.
Hackman and Arakawa were both found dead in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home in February 2025. Hackman, 95, died from natural causes. Arakawa, 65, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. That’s a severe, potentially deadly disease caused by hantavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
After Arakawa and Hackman were found dead, officials conducted an environmental assessment of their home that found evidence of rodents and rodent feces around their property, according to a copy of the report obtained by USA TODAY in April 2025.
While Arakawa’s death and the infections among those on board the MV Hondius both center on hantavirus, the cases are different because of the suspected transmission.
Arakawa is believed to have contracted the virus from the rodent droppings found around her and Hackman’s home, while some of the infected cruise ship passengers are suspected to have gotten sick from each other.
USA TODAY Staff
Residents in at least three U.S. states who traveled on the MV Hondius are being monitored for potential hantavirus infections, according to officials and reports.
The New York Times reported May 6 that public health agencies in Georgia, Arizona and California are monitoring residents who were aboard the MV Hondius cruise but have since returned to their homes. None of the people being monitored have shown signs of illness, according to the Times.
The Georgia Department of Public Health is monitoring two residents, the agency said in a statement to USA TODAY on May 6.
“The individuals are currently in good health and show no signs of infection. They are following current recommendations from CDC,” the Georgia DPH said in the statement.
The Times and Reuters reported that the Arizona Department of Health Services was notified about one resident who had been on the MV Hondius.
The California Department of Public Health said it was alerted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that state residents were also on board the ship. The agency did not disclose how many people were being monitored in California, according to the Times.
“At this time, the risk to the American public is extremely low,” the CDC said in a statement about the cruise outbreak on May 6.
USA TODAY Staff
The MV Hondius departed from its location off Cape Verde, an island nation near Africa’s west coast, on May 6 and headed north.
The ship will sail toward the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain.
“This is expected to take 3-4 days,” operator Oceanwide said in a May 6 update. “Three additional medical professionals have embarked m/v Hondius to provide optimal medical care during the crossing.”
Early on May 6, three passengers with suspected infections were evacuated from the ship. They were transferred on two medical aircrafts and have since landed in the Netherlands for treatment, Oceanwide said.
USA TODAY Staff
WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove said during a May 5 news conference that passengers on board have been asked to remain in their cabins “while disinfection and other public health measures are carried out.”
The ship also has “plenty” of food and water on board, she added.
Jake Rosmarin, a guest aboard MV Hondius, said in a statement that passengers are generally in good spirits and that safety protocols such as social distancing and masking are in place.
Passengers can have meals delivered to their cabin and are allowed access to outer decks for fresh air, he added.
“Oceanwide Expeditions and the crew have been doing everything within their ability to keep passengers safe, informed, and as comfortable as possible during this time,” he said. The company confirmed to USA TODAY that the measures Rosmarin referenced were in place.
USA TODAY Staff
Officials believe a husband and wife, Dutch nationals, were infected while they were off the cruise ship, engaging in wildlife expeditions. Others with suspected infections may have come in contact with the virus on islands as well, WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove said during a briefing.
“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’ve shared cabins, etcetera,” Van Kerkhove said.
On May 6, the WHO said the strain of hantavirus has been confirmed through laboratory testing as Andes virus, a strain found in South America that is believed to spread person-to-person.
The WHO has also said the current risk to the rest of the world is low, but it is continuing to monitor the situation and provide updates.
Sara M Moniuszko
Hantaviruses are a group of viruses that naturally infect rodents, sometimes long‑term without apparent illness, and are occasionally transmitted to humans, according to the World Health Organization.
“Although many hantavirus species have been identified worldwide, only a limited number are known to cause human disease,” the WHO adds.
Hantavirus is primarily spread by rodents through exposure to their urine, droppings or saliva and less commonly through a scratch or bite, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“While rare, hantavirus may spread between people and can lead to severe respiratory illness and requires careful patient monitoring, support and response,” the WHO notes.