CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A Dutch cruise ship with nearly 150 people aboard, including 17 Americans, was waiting for help off the coast of Cape Verde in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday after a suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus killed three passengers and left at least three others seriously ill, the World Health Organization and the ship's operator said.
The MV Hondius, which was on a weekslong polar cruise from Argentina to Antarctica and then several isolated islands in the South Atlantic, had requested help from local health authorities on Sunday after making its way to the island of Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa, but no one has yet been allowed to disembark, the company operating the cruise said.
There are 88 passengers — including one who has died — and 61 crew members, two of whom are sick, onboard, the operator said Monday. The passengers include 17 Americans, 19 from the U.K. and 13 from Spain, among other nationalities.
The three passengers to die were from the Netherlands and Germany. The German remains on board. A British man is in intensive care in South Africa.
A 70-year-old Dutch man who presented with fever, headache, abdominal pain and diarrhea was the first victim and died onboard on April 11, the ship's Netherlands-based operator Oceanwide Expeditions said in a statement giving new details. His body was taken off the vessel nearly two weeks later on the British territory of Saint Helena, some 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) off the African coast, and was awaiting repatriation.
His 69-year-old wife was transferred to South Africa at the same time but collapsed at a Johannesburg airport and died at a nearby hospital, the South African Department of Health said.
The ship then sailed on to Ascension Island, another isolated Atlantic outpost about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) to the north, where a sick British man was taken off the ship and evacuated to South Africa on April 27. He later tested positive for hantavirus, a rare infection spread by rodents that can cause serious respiratory illness or hemorrhagic fever, the South African health department said.
He is in a critical condition and is now in intensive care in a South African hospital, where he is being kept isolated, authorities said.
A third passenger died onboard on Saturday and was identified as a German national. The body is still on the ship, the cruise operator said. It specified that the three deaths are not yet confirmed to be hantavirus as the only person confirmed to have the virus is the man in intensive care in South Africa.
WHO said that while only one hantavirus case was confirmed through tests, the other five cases were suspected to be hantavirus.
Two crew members still onboard the Hondius — one British, one Dutch — need urgent medical care, Oceanwide said, adding it was still awaiting permission from local authorities in Cape Verde on Monday to evacuate passengers and crew members. The company said it was considering moving to one of the Spanish islands of Las Palmas or Tenerife if it couldn't get people off the ship in Cape Verde.
The World Health Organization had said Sunday that it was working with local authorities and the ship's operators to conduct a “full public health risk assessment” and was trying to coordinate the evacuation of the two sick people from the ship.
“Detailed investigations are ongoing, including further laboratory testing, and epidemiological investigations,” WHO said. “Medical care and support are being provided to passengers and crew. Sequencing of the virus is also ongoing.”
The Dutch Foreign Ministry said it was also exploring the possibilities of evacuating some people from the ship.
A Dutch organization called On Behalf of the Family issued a comment from relatives of a Dutch couple who they said were on the cruise and had died in April.
“The beautiful journey they experienced together has been abruptly and definitively cut short. ... We wish to bring them home and commemorate them in peace and privacy,” the statement said, without identifying the family.
Hantaviruses, which are found throughout the world, are a family of viruses spread mainly by contact with the urine or feces of infected rodents like rats and mice. They gained attention after actor Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from hantavirus infection in New Mexico last year. She was not immediately found and her ailing husband died around a week later from heart disease.
In rare cases, hantavirus infections can be spread between people, WHO said. There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival.
Hantaviruses cause two serious syndromes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, affecting the lungs, and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, affecting the kidneys.
“While severe in some cases, it is not easily transmitted between people,” Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, said in a statement Monday. “The risk to the wider public remains low. There is no need for panic or travel restrictions.”
South Africa's Department of Health said the ship had left Ushuaia in southern Argentina for a cruise that included visits to Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and other isolated islands in the South Atlantic.
While Oceanwide Expeditions didn't say exactly which cruise the ship was on, it advertises 33-night or 43-night “Atlantic Odyssey” cruises on the 107-meter (351-foot) -long Hondius on its website that follow that route.
The Hondius has 80 cabins and a capacity of 170 passengers, the company said. It typically travels with around 70 crew members, including a doctor, it said.
Though there was no information from authorities on the possible source of the suspected outbreak, a previous hantavirus outbreak in southern Argentina in 2019 killed at least nine people. It prompted a judge to order dozens of residents of a remote town to stay in their homes for 30 days to halt the spread.
South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases, meanwhile, was conducting contact tracing in the Johannesburg region to identify if other people in South Africa were exposed to the infected cruise ship passengers. The 69-year-old woman who died was trying to catch a flight back home to the Netherlands at Johannesburg's main international airport, regarded as the busiest in Africa, when she collapsed.
“There is no need for (the) public to panic,” South Africa's health department said, adding WHO was “coordinating a multicountry response with all affected islands and countries to contain further spread of the disease.”
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AP writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.
A view of the m/v Hondius Cruise ship anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
A view of the m/v Hondius Cruise ship anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
FILE - A woman works at her shop in Epuyen, Argentina, Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, after an outbreak of hantavirus. (AP Photo/Gustavo Zaninelli, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military said Monday that two American-flagged merchant ships had successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz and that Navy guided-missile destroyers in the Persian Gulf were helping to restore shipping traffic. It separately denied Iran’s claims to have struck an American Navy vessel.
The announcement came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new initiative to help guide ships through the critical waterway for global energy. Iran has effectively closed the strait since the U.S. and Israel started the war on Feb. 28, rattling the global economy.
The U.S.-led Joint Maritime Information Center has advised ships to cross the strait in Oman’s waters, saying it set up an “enhanced security area.” U.S. Central Command did not say when the Navy ships arrived or when the merchant vessels departed.
It was unclear whether shipping companies, and their insurers, will feel comfortable taking the risk given that Iran has fired on ships in the waterway and vowed to keep doing so. Hundreds of ships have been bottled up in the Persian Gulf for weeks.
Iran has said the new U.S. effort is a violation of the fragile ceasefire reached in early April. Its control of the strait has allowed it to inflict pain on the global economy despite being outgunned on the battlefield.
The United Arab Emirates meanwhile issued an emergency missile alert urging residents to immediately seek shelter. It was the first such alert since the ceasefire war went into effect in early April. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage and an all-clear order was later issued.
Iranian news agencies, including the semiofficial Fars and the Iranian Labour News Agency, had earlier claimed that Iran struck a U.S. vessel near an Iranian port southeast of the strait, accusing it of “violating maritime security and navigation norms.” The reports said the vessel was forced to turn back.
The U.S. Central Command said on social media that “no U.S. Navy ships have been struck.”
The U.S. military has said the new initiative might involve guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft and 15,000 service members but has not specified what kind of assistance it would provide.
Trump's announcement that the U.S. would “guide” ships out of the strait warned that Iranian efforts to block them “will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.”
He described “Project Freedom” in humanitarian terms, designed to aid stranded seafarers, many on oil tankers or cargo ships, who have been stuck in the Persian Gulf since the war began. Crews have described to The Associated Press seeing drones and missiles explode over the waters as their vessels run low on drinking water, food and other supplies.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency called “Project Freedom” part of Trump's “delirium.”
Iran’s military command on Monday said ships passing must coordinate with them.
“We warn that any foreign military force — especially the aggressive U.S. military — that intends to approach or enter the Strait of Hormuz will be targeted,” Maj. Gen. Pilot Ali Abdollahi told state broadcaster IRIB.
And the United Arab Emirates on Monday accused Iran of targeting a tanker linked to its main oil company with two drones as it passed through the strait. It did not say when the attack took place. No injuries were reported.
The Joint Maritime Information Center urged mariners to coordinate closely with Omani authorities “due to anticipated high traffic volume.” It warned that passing close to usual routes, known as the traffic separation scheme, “should be considered extremely hazardous due to the presence of mines that have not been fully surveyed and mitigated.”
But the head of security for the Baltic and International Maritime Council, a leading shipping trade group, said no formal guidance or details about the U.S. effort had been issued to the industry. Jakob Larsen questioned whether the effort was sustainable in the long run or envisioned as a more limited operation, and said there is a “risk of hostilities breaking out again” if it goes ahead.
The disruption of the waterway has squeezed countries in Europe and Asia that depend on Persian Gulf oil and gas, raising prices far beyond the region.
Trump has promised to bring down gas prices as he faces midterm elections this year.
The U.S. has warned shipping companies they could face sanctions for paying Iran for transit of the strait. It has enacted a naval blockade on Iranian ports since April 13, telling 49 commercial ships to turn back, U.S. Central Command said Sunday.
The blockade has deprived Tehran of oil revenue it needs to shore up its ailing economy.
U.S. officials have expressed hope that the blockade forces Iran back to the negotiation table.
“We think that they’ve gotten less than $1.3 million in tolls, which is a pittance on their previous daily oil revenues,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Sunday, adding that Iran’s oil storage is rapidly filling up and “they’re going to have to start shutting in wells, which we think could be in the next week.”
Iran’s latest 14-point proposal for ending the war, made public over the weekend, calls for the U.S. lifting sanctions, ending the U.S. naval blockade, withdrawing forces from the region and ceasing all hostilities, including Israel’s operations in Lebanon, according to the semiofficial Nour News and Tasnim agencies, which have close ties to Iran’s security organizations.
Iranian officials said they were reviewing the U.S. response, though Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters on Monday that changing demands, which he did not detail, made diplomacy difficult.
Iran has claimed its proposal does not include issues related to its nuclear program and enriched uranium — long a driving force in tensions with the U.S. and Israel.
Iran’s proposal wants other issues resolved within 30 days and aims to end the war rather than extend the ceasefire. Trump on Saturday said he was reviewing the proposal but expressed doubt it would lead to a deal.
Pakistan said Monday it has facilitated the transfer of 22 crew members from an Iranian vessel seized earlier by the U.S., describing the move as a confidence-building measure as Islamabad attempts to revive talks. Pakistan hosted face-to-face talks last month.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said the crew members, who had been aboard the Iranian container ship MV Touska, were flown to Pakistan overnight. They were expected to be handed over to Iranian authorities.
The vessel will be brought into Pakistani territorial waters for necessary repairs before being returned to its original owners, the ministry said, adding that the process is being coordinated with the support of Iran and the U.S.
Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Munir Ahmed contributed from Islamabad, Pakistan.
A bulk cargo ship sits at anchor in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Saturday, May 2, 2026.(Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
A patrol boat moves through the water as cargo ships sit at anchor in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Saturday, May 2, 2026.(Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
An Iranian tugboat floats in the foreground as cargo ships sit at anchor in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, May 4, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
A container ship sits at anchor as a small motorboat passes in the foreground in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
People view rugs at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Sunday, May 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman looks at jewelry in the window of a gold shop at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Sunday, May 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A man stands in the water, appearing to fish, as bulk carriers, cargo ships, and service vessels line the horizon in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, April 27, 2026.(Razieh Poudat/ISNA via AP)
Vehicles drive past a billboard with graphic showing Strait of Hormuz and sewn lips of U.S. President Donald Trump in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Cargo ships are seen at sea near the Strait of Hormuz, as viewed from a rocky shoreline near Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
