3 patients evacuated from cruise ship with hantavirus outbreak, new case confirmed in Switzerland

GENEVA (AP) — The cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak and which is stuck off the coast of Cape Verde with nearly 150 people on board was waiting Wednesday to head to Spain’s Canary Islands. Meanwhile, health authorities in South Africa and Switzerland identified a strain of the virus that can be transmitted between humans in rare cases.

Three passengers have died and several others have been sickened by hantavirus on board the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise ship. Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings.

The ship left Argentina on April 1 on an Atlantic cruise and was scheduled to include stops in Antarctica, the Falkland Islands and other locations. However, the itinerary appears to have changed because of the situation on board.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said three patients with suspected hantavirus cases have been evacuated from the ship and are on their way to the Netherlands.

He said the U.N. health agency is working with the operators of the cruise ship to closely monitor the health of passengers and crew.

“At this stage, the overall public health risk remains low,” he wrote on his X account.

Among the patients is the ship's doctor, Spain’s health ministry has said. The ministry said on Wednesday that the doctor, who was initially scheduled to be flown to the Canary Islands, is now being evacuated directly home to the Netherlands “after his health had improved."

Authorities in Switzerland also announced Wednesday that a man who returned from a trip to South America and traveled on the cruise ship has tested positive for the virus and is receiving treatment.

Spain’s health ministry said in a statement late Tuesday that it would receive the MV Hondius vessel in the Canary Islands after a request from the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Despite some opposition from leaders in the region, the government insisted that it would ultimately make the call.

For now the luxury cruise ship remains marooned off the coast of Cape Verde, an island nation off West Africa in the Atlantic. The World Health Organization said passengers are isolating in their cabins.

South African health authorities said they identified the Andes strain of hantavirus in two passengers who were on the ship, and Swiss authorities said they identified the same virus in their affected patient.

The World Health Organization says the Andes virus, a specific species of hantavirus, is found in South America, primarily in Argentina and Chile.

The Andes virus can be spread between people, though this is rare and the spread of the disease is typically contained because it would spread only through close contact, such as by sharing a bed or sharing food, experts say.

The South African Department of Health said its results came from tests performed on the passengers after they were removed from the ship and flown to South Africa.

One of the passengers, a British man, is in intensive care in a South African hospital. Tests were performed on the other passenger posthumously after she died in South Africa.

A statement from the Federal Office of Public Health said that the man “returned to Switzerland after traveling on the cruise ship on which there were a number of hantavirus cases.” It said his case also involved the Andes virus.

The Swiss health office initially said the patient hospitalized in Zurich had “returned from a trip to South America” with his wife at the end of April, without specifying. Simon Ming, a spokesperson for the office, clarified in an email that the patient got off during its stop in St. Helena, in the South Atlantic Ocean.

It was not immediately clear when that was or how he was returned to Switzerland.

The patient’s wife hasn’t shown any symptoms but is self-isolating as a precaution, the statement said.

The public health office said that “there is currently no risk to the Swiss public.”

The WHO said in a social media post that the man responded to “an email from the ship’s operator informing the passengers of the health event” and went to the hospital.

The cruise ship will be welcomed to Spain’s Canary Islands, according to Spanish authorities, as the vessel waited off the coast of West Africa for a third day Wednesday for sick passengers to be evacuated.

The regional president of Spain’s Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, said Wednesday that he was worried the arrival of the ship could put the local population at risk and demanded an urgent meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

“Neither the populace nor the government of the Canary Islands can rest assured because it is clear that the danger to the population is real,” Clavijo told Onda Cero radio.

The World Health Organization has said the ship had an itinerary that included stops across the South Atlantic Ocean, including mainland Antarctica and the remote islands of South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension.

The cruise company has only announced some details of two stops: at St. Helena, where the body of the Dutch man suspected to be the first hantavirus case on board was taken off the ship. His wife also left the ship at St. Helena and flew to South Africa, where she died.

The company said a British man was later evacuated from the ship at Ascension Island and taken to South Africa, where he is in an intensive care unit.

The company has not said if other people left the cruise ship at those or other locations.

Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria, and Imray from Cape Town, South Africa. Renata Brito and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Geir Moulson in Berlin, and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

A night view of the MV Hondius cruise ship anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

An aerial view of the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)

An aerial view of the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A number of Australian women with alleged ties to Islamic State group militants will be arrested and face criminal investigations if they return from Syria, police said Wednesday.

The Australian government had been alerted Wednesday that four women and nine children had booked flights from Damascus to Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said. He did not say when they were expected to arrive.

Australian Federal Police since 2015 have been investigating the behavior of Australians who had traveled to the Islamic State group’s so-called caliphate that had been centered in Syria, Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said.

Investigations had included potential terrorism offenses and crimes against humanity such as slave trading, she said.

“Some individuals will be arrested and charged. Some will face continued investigations when they arrive in Australia,” Barrett told reporters.

The children would undergo programs to counter violent extremism, she said.

The government was required to provide the group travel documents but has repeatedly said it was not helping repatriate them.

“The individuals concerned traveled … in support of one of the most horrific terrorist organizations we’ve seen in recent history or in our lifetimes,” Burke told reporters.

“There is a reason why the government has drawn a very hard line saying we will do nothing to assist. The government’s complete lack of support for these individuals is a direct reflection of the decisions that they made,” he added.

The women were held in Roj Camp near Syria's border with Iraq. They left the camp last week, but the Syrian government told The Associated Press then that the Australian government had “refused to receive them.”

Burke said there was little his government could do to prevent their return. “There are very serious limits on what can be done with respect to preventing a citizen of a country returning to their country,” Burke said.

A previous attempt to return 34 women and children to Australia from the same camp in February was turned back by Syrian authorities.

On that occasion, Australia’s government banned one of the women from returning.

The woman, whom the government did not identify, had been issued with a temporary exclusion order which Australia can use to prevent high-risk citizens from returning for up to two years.

The orders were created by laws introduced to in 2019 to prevent defeated Islamic State fighters from returning to Australia. There are no public reports of an order being issued before.

Such orders can’t be made against children younger than 14. But Australia has ruled out separating children from their mothers.

Burke said the order made in February that banned the woman’s return remained in place.

Under Australian law, it was an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison to travel to the former Syrian Islamic State group stronghold of Raqqa without a legitimate reason from 2014 to 2017.

Former Islamic States fighters from multiple countries, along with their wives and children, were held in a network of camps and detention centers in northeast Syria after the militant group lost control of its territory in Syria in 2019. Though defeated, the group still has fighters that carry out attacks in Syria and Iraq.

The larger al-Hol camp has now been closed, and thousands of suspected IS militants previously held in Syria were transferred to Iraq by the U.S. military to stand trial there.

The moves came after fighting between government forces and the SDF in January. Government forces seized much of the territory formerly held by the SDF. Amid the chaos, many detainees fled al-Hol and some prisoners escaped from a detention center.

Australian governments have repatriated Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps on two occasions. Other Australians have returned without government assistance.

A soldier stands guard as vehicles arrive at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, housing people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants, to transport Australian families to Damascus as part of a second repatriation effort by Syrian authorities, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)

A brick wall surrounds a tent camp housing people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)

Members of Australian families at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, housing people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants, prepare to leave for Damascus as part of a second repatriation effort by Syrian authorities, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)

Members of Australian families at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, housing people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants, prepare to leave for Damascus as part of a second repatriation effort by Syrian authorities, at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)

Members of Australian families at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, housing people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants, prepare to leave for Damascus as part of a second repatriation effort by Syrian authorities, at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)