PRAIA, Cape Verde (AP) — Three people from a cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak, including the ship’s doctor, were being flown to the Netherlands for medical care on Wednesday as the ship with some 150 passengers prepared to head to Spain’s Canary Islands.
Three people have died, and the World Health Organization says eight cases have been recorded in all.
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An air ambulance takes off with evacuated patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship from the airport 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)
The MV Hondius cruise ship is anchored 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 into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Passengers on the Dutch ship, the MV Hondius, are isolating in their cabins as the ship remained near the Cape Verde islands off West Africa. The ship left Argentina on April 1 for a weekslong polar cruise.
The rare virus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings. It can spread person-to-person, although the WHO says that is rare.
Two Argentine officials investigating the outbreak say the government’s leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus during a bird-watching tour while visiting a garbage dump. They may have been exposed to rodents carrying the infection.
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The World Health Organization’s top epidemic expert told the AP that the risk to the public is low, and the Andes variant of the hantavirus is known — even if the WHO has never seen a hantavirus outbreak on a ship.
“This is not the next Covid, but it is a serious infectious disease,” Maria Van Kerkhove said. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”
For those on the ship, access to clinical care is important, she said, because infected people can develop severe acute respiratory distress and need oxygen or mechanical ventilation. The hantavirus incubation period can be one to six weeks, or more, she added.
Two Argentine officials investigating the origins of the hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship that sailed from southern Argentina say the government’s leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus during a bird-watching outing in the city of Ushuaia before boarding.
They said the couple visited a landfill during the bird-watching tour where they may have been exposed to rodents carrying the infection.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, with the investigation ongoing. Previously authorities said that Ushuaia and the surrounding province of Tierra del Fuego had never recorded a case of the hantavirus.
— By Isabel DeBre
Oceanwide Expeditions says they are being taken by specially equipped planes to “locations able to provide specialized care and appropriate medical screening.”
A Dutch hospital has confirmed it will take one of the people, and German authorities say they are preparing to pick up a second from the Netherlands.
The Dutch company says two of the people medically evacuated “remain in a serious condition.” The third has no symptoms but was “closely associated” with a passenger who died May 2.
The company also says that it is “expanding medical care on board with two infectious disease physicians, arriving today by plane from the Netherlands.”
The Leiden University Medical Center says the department where the patient will be seen is well prepared.
In a statement posted on its website, the hospital said, “In addition to isolation rooms for patients, all protective equipment for our staff is available. Treatment takes place in strict isolation, following the applicable protocols. The LUMC has specialized isolation facilities."
It also seeks to reassure other visitors to the hospital, saying patients or visitors “run no risk of infection. You do not need to take any special measures. You can continue to visit as usual.”
In Germany, the Düsseldorf University Clinic said that one of the three passengers who was evacuated from the ship and is being flown to the Netherlands, who was in contact with one of the hantavirus cases on board the ship, would be brought to the hospital for testing later Wednesday.
It said in a statement that the person would be brought to Düsseldorf from an unspecified Dutch airport with the help of specialists from the city’s fire service.
The hospital stressed that the patient is asymptomatic and that the testing is a precaution.
The arrival of the boat “won’t represent any risk for the public,” Spanish Health Minister Mónica García said.
She said that the boat will arrive at a secondary port on the island of Tenerife, which is located 10 minutes from an airport. From there, the roughly 140 passengers will be repatriated to their home countries.
García said that the operation to send the passengers and crew home will be overseen by the European Union’s civil protection program.
The 14 Spaniards who are on board will be flown by military plane to the mainland, where, if necessary, they will be kept in quarantine.
The regional president of Spain’s Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, said Wednesday that the Hondius had requested permission for the ship to dock on the island of Tenerife on May 9.
Clavijo, however, expressed his surprise that the passengers were being forced “to travel for three days” instead of flying to their homes from the airport in Praia.
He also complained that central authorities in Madrid had not informed him of the details of the circumstances on board the vessel, a situation that limited local health officials’ ability to prepare for its arrival.
“We still don’t know the status of all the passengers,” he said. “There is no protocol for this.”
Oceanwide Expeditions said Tuesday evening that two specialized aircraft were flying to Cape Verde to evacuate two people who need urgent medical care and one person who was traveling with a German woman who died on board Saturday. They were to be taken to the Netherlands, though exactly when that would happen was not immediately clear.
Once the medical evacuation happens, the ship plans to sail to the Canary Islands, either Gran Canaria or Tenerife, a voyage of some three days, the company said in its statement, adding that “discussions are ongoing with relevant authorities.”
Spanish health officials had said in an earlier statement that they were monitoring and that “the most appropriate port of call will be decided. Until then, the Ministry of Health will not adopt any decision, as we have informed the World Health Organization.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
An air ambulance takes off with evacuated patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship from the airport 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)
The MV Hondius cruise ship is anchored 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 into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
