{"id":11947,"date":"2026-05-06T17:14:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11947"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:14:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:14:56","slug":"cruise-ships-hantavirus-outbreak-could-have-started-on-bird-watching-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/05\/06\/cruise-ships-hantavirus-outbreak-could-have-started-on-bird-watching-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruise Ship’s Hantavirus Outbreak Could Have Started On Bird-Watching Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Forbes<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1<\/a> for the Canary Islands off the coast of northwestern Africa, visiting some of the world\u2019s 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\u2019s body was taken from the ship) and Ascension Island, where the British man was medically evacuated.<\/a> The ship then sailed for the port of Praia in Cape Verde, but was denied permission to dock. There have been three confirmed cases and five suspected cases linked to the outbreak so far. Three people have died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tangent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A passenger who was aboard the MV Hondius before disembarking several weeks into the journey told the BBC<\/a> the operator of the cruise ship “didn’t inform us about any potential viruses” after the death of the ship’s first passenger amid the outbreak. Ruhi Cenet, a Turkish Youtuber, told the agency he is “very unhappy” with how the outbreak was handled and that despite being onboard for almost two weeks after the man’s death, passengers were told the man was “not infections” and, therefore, the remaining passengers took no health and safety precautions. “We were together in the lecture rooms. We were all together during breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’m talking about over 100 passengers. People were socializing, they were sitting side by side,” Cenet said of life onboard ship. The ship’s operator has said it could not have informed passengers of the disease any sooner because they did not know what killed him and believed his death to be an isolated incident.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s 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\u2019s body was taken from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-headlines","category-hantavirus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11948,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11947\/revisions\/11948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}