Tracking deadly hantavirus outbreak: Cruise ship map, passengers, symptoms
At least 149 people, 17 of them from the United States, are being monitored for hantavirus as part of an international disease response after an outbreak aboard a luxury cruise ship caused the deaths of three people and infected five others.
The virus has been identified as the Andes virus, the only type of hantavirus that can be transmitted from one person to another. The World Health Organization has repeatedly said the risk to the general public is currently considered low and is not calling the outbreak an epidemic.
Two of the U.S. passengers being monitored reside in Texas and returned to the state before the outbreak was identified, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those who are being watched either disembarked with or came into contact with people who traveled on the MV Hondius, a cruise ship.
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U.S. officials in at least five states — Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Virginia — are monitoring symptoms of seven returning passengers, according to The Washington Post.
The outbreak appears to have started with a male passenger who boarded the vessel after he was infected with the virus, according to a health expert with the WHO.
The passenger was one of three aboard the MV Hondius who died of the virus. Five other passengers have tested positive for it and three others are suspected of being infected.
The Argentinean government says it believes the male passenger and his wife, who also died, contracted the virus during a bird-watching outing at a landfill in Ushuaia before boarding the ship.
The incubation period for the virus is usually about “two to three weeks,” according to Anais Legand, an expert on viral hemorrhagic fevers at the WHO.
U.S. officials in at least five states — Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Virginia — are monitoring symptoms of seven returning passengers, according to The Washington Post.
Another male passenger, who traveled aboard the ship and flew home to Switzerland, is hospitalized in Zurich. Swiss authorities confirmed the case. The passenger responded to an email from the ship’s operator informing passengers of the health event and checked himself in at a hospital.
The new case in Switzerland, where the patient fell ill after his return to the mainland, raises the specter of human-to-human transmission, The Wall Street Journal reported. A Dutch flight attendant is being monitored after coming into contact with a passenger who died, according to RTL news.
The WHO is working on contact tracing which monitors those who may have been exposed and attempts to limit disease spread.
Tracking the MV Hondius' path
April 1: The cruise ship departs Ushuaia, Argentina, at 3 p.m. local time with about 150 people onboard.
April 5: The ship reaches the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands.
April 6: The ship makes several turns as it tours the region for a day. The first passenger, a 70-year-old man, falls ill while the ship is on the north coast of the islands.
April 7: The ship visits the south eastern coast of the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands before it heads out to sea due northeast.
April 11: A passenger dies onboard the ship near the Tristan da Cunha, a remote island off the coast of South Africa.
April 16: After touring the nearby islands of Tristan da Cunha the ship heads southeast.
April 17: The ship circles the Gough Island before heading north.
April 22: The ship arrives at St. Helena.
April 24: The body of the passenger is removed from the ship at St. Helena. The passenger's 69-year-old wife leaves and flies to South Africa. The ship departs northwest.
April 26: The 69-year-old wife dies.
April 27: The ship arrives at Georgetown, on the Ascension Island, St. Helena. Later it departs northwest.
May 4: Test results on the 69-year-old wife are positive for hantavirus.
May 3: The ship arrives at Cape Verde, where it stays until May 6.
May 6: The ship departs for the Canary Islands.
May 7: The cruise ship is about 360 miles west of Mauritania, Africa as it continues to the Canary Islands.
What is hantavirus?
Hantaviruses are groups of viruses – microscopic organisms that infect hosts – transmitted by mice and rats. They can cause serious, sometimes fatal, illnesses in people. Hantavirus disease is considered rare, with 890 cases reported in the United States between 1993 and 2023.
Rodent sightings on cruise ships are relatively rare, according to Walt Nadolny, professor emeritus of marine transportation and global business at the State University of New York Maritime College, and a former environmental officer for Carnival Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line.
Oceanwide Expeditions, owner of the MV Hondius, said on May 6 that the ship is headed to the the Canary Islands. The trip is expected to take 3-4 days. Three additional medical professionals are also now onboard.
Spanish officials say the ship will dock at the Granadilla port in Tenerife, where passengers will be allowed to leave the ship. Those with symptoms will be quarantined on a Madrid military base, and people without symptoms will be sent home, BBC reported.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove explained that hantavirus is dramatically different from coronavirus in a WHO briefing.
"I want to be unequivocal here: this is not SARS-CoV-2. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic," she emphasized.
Contributing: Eduardo Cuevas, Nathan Diller, and Shawn J. Sullivan, USA TODAY
This is a developing story that will be updated.
