Category: Featured Headlines
A dangerous experiment is playing out on a cruise ship with hantavirus
Scientific American The tragic and fatal outbreak of hantavirus onboard a luxury cruise ship highlights the gaps in research and treatments for the rare and mysterious infection—including how the virus spreads among people. The fatal outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship is a tragic case study in how pathogens in this mysterious family of […]
May 6, 2026
Hantavirus, COVID, norovirus, legionnaires’: why are cruise ships so prone to disease outbreaks?
The Conversation Cruises are sold as floating holidays, but they are also useful for understanding public health. Cruise ships are carefully designed places where many people live, eat, relax and move through the same shared spaces for days at a time. They show how easily illness can spread when people are packed into a single […]
May 6, 2026
Spanish passenger on the ‘Hondius’: ‘There are 23 people who got off on Saint Helena and have been wandering around’
El Pais Health authorities only began contacting the passengers who left the ship on Tuesday. Twenty‑three passengers from the MV Hondius have been on land for more than two weeks. They disembarked on April 21 on the island of Saint Helena, 10 days after the first death on board, and began their journeys home. That is what a […]
May 6, 2026
What is hantavirus? Here’s everything you need to know about how it spreads
National Geographic Experts explain why the outbreak aboard a Dutch cruise ship is so rare—and how much of a risk it poses. It’s not extraordinary for a cruise ship to be afflicted by an eruption of infectious diseases. But the recent cluster of hantavirus cases on the M.V. Hondius, a Dutch polar expedition vessel sailing from Argentina […]
May 6, 2026
Cruise Ship’s Hantavirus Outbreak Could Have Started On Bird-Watching Trip
Forbes Key Background The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1 for the Canary Islands off the coast of northwestern Africa, visiting some of the world’s most remote islands along the way. The ship made stops in Antarctica, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena (where the Dutch man’s body was taken from the […]
May 6, 2026
Hantavirus is on the rise in Argentina, where a stricken cruise ship began its journey
LA Times A deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship departing Argentina highlights a broader crisis: The country is experiencing a surge of the rare rodent-borne disease linked to climate change. Argentina has recorded 101 hantavirus infections since June 2025, roughly double the previous year, with the mortality rate nearly tripling to about one-third of […]
May 6, 2026
Hantavirus-hit cruise ship to head to Canary Islands as Swiss confirm new case
Washington Post More than 140 people remain on the Hondius, which will take about three days to reach the Spanish archipelago for screening. A local official has criticized the plan. Three people were evacuated Wednesday from the cruise ship facing a hantavirus outbreak in the Atlantic Ocean, as Swiss health authorities confirmed another case in […]
May 6, 2026
A Brutal First for the Cruise Industry
The Atlantic A hantavirus outbreak is serious and unnerving. Norovirus loves a cruise ship. So did the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. The crowded rooms, stuffy air, and communal dining of a giant boat filled with humans create the ideal conditions for pathogens to spread. Now hantavirus—a highly deadly rodent-borne pathogen that typically spreads when people […]
May 6, 2026
Hantavirus Cruise Ship Remains at Sea as Leaders Clash Over Its Docking
NYT Three people with possible symptoms of the disease were evacuated on Wednesday morning from the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius. The passengers of the MV Hondius, in the grip of a deadly virus outbreak, are putting on movies, sanitizing their hands repeatedly and awaiting their next socially distanced meal as their ship sails the Atlantic. The […]
May 6, 2026
Hantavirus Case in Switzerland Spurs Race to Trace Contacts
WSJ Patient fell ill with strain capable of human-to-human transmission after returning from cruise ship. Swiss officials are rushing to trace the contacts of a man who has been hospitalized in Zurich with a strain of the hantavirus that is capable of human-to-human transmission. The patient became ill in Switzerland after returning from a trip […]
May 6, 2026