{"id":11949,"date":"2026-05-06T17:18:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11949"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:18:28","slug":"what-is-hantavirus-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-it-spreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/05\/06\/what-is-hantavirus-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-it-spreads\/","title":{"rendered":"What is hantavirus? Here’s everything you need to know about how it spreads"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

National Geographic<\/a> Experts explain why the outbreak aboard a Dutch cruise ship is so rare\u2014and how much of a risk it poses. It\u2019s 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. <\/a>Hondius<\/em><\/a>, a Dutch polar expedition vessel sailing from Argentina to the Canary Islands, was \u201cdefinitely a surprise,\u201d says Steven Bradfute<\/a>, an immunologist and hantavirus researcher at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gastrointestinal infections like norovirus and E. coli<\/em>are most common, although respiratory infections also sometimes cause onboard outbreaks, as when COVID-19 stranded the Grand Princess<\/a> off the shores of California in the early days of the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is the first cruise ship-associated outbreak of hantavirus Bradfute says he has heard of, and its circumstances are concerning enough that public health officials are watching closely.\u00a0On May 6, the\u00a0World Health Organization<\/a>\u00a0announced that the virus involved in the cluster was an Andes virus.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, eight cases have been identified, including three deaths, one person who is critically ill, three who have mild symptoms, and a newly identified patient in Switzerland who had traveled on the ship. All but the newly identified patient developed symptoms between April 6 and 28 and experienced fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, with rapid progression to pneumonia, leading to cardiovascular collapse for some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ship remains stranded after it was refused permission<\/a> to dock in Cape Verde, and its remaining passengers are confined to their cabins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is hantavirus and how does it spread among humans? Here\u2019s everything you need to know.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n

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National Geographic Experts explain why the outbreak aboard a Dutch cruise ship is so rare\u2014and how much of a risk it poses. It\u2019s 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 […]<\/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":[6,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-headlines","category-haunta-virus"],"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\/11949","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=11949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11950,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11949\/revisions\/11950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}