WHO confirms hantavirus case in British Overseas Territory; cruise ship passenger infected

The World Health Organization said the British government has reported one confirmed case of hantavirus.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the patient had previously been classified as a suspected case following potential exposure aboard the MV Hondius.

Tedros said the confirmed patient resides on Tristan da Cunha, a volcanic island in the South Atlantic that is a British Overseas Territory.

The man disembarked from the Hondius — the cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak — on April 14.

The British government had classified him as a suspected case and deployed paratroopers and a military doctor to the remote island, which has no airstrip, to provide medical support.

The Hondius departed Argentina on April 1, and a hantavirus outbreak emerged aboard the vessel during its Atlantic voyage. The ship, which was in waters off Cape Verde in West Africa at the time, later called at Spain's Canary Islands to disembark passengers.

Governments around the world placed returning passengers in hospital isolation to prevent local spread. The incubation period for hantavirus is estimated at up to six weeks. The virus is typically transmitted through rodents.

Dutch health authorities said on May 22 that a crew member of the Hondius tested positive for hantavirus while in self-isolation.

The Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) announced that the crew member, who had been self-isolating in the Netherlands, was confirmed to be infected with the Andes variant of hantavirus.

The crew member was transferred to a hospital and placed in isolation as a precautionary measure, RIVM said. The Andes variant, which can spread between humans, is generally considered to have an incubation period of six to eight weeks.

"Questions and concerns may arise about this new confirmed case, but the likelihood of further spread in the Netherlands remains very low," RIVM said, urging the public not to be alarmed.

Tedros said at the time that the WHO was continuing to urge countries connected to the hantavirus cruise ship to closely monitor all passengers and crew until the end of their quarantine periods. He added that more than 600 contacts across 30 countries were still under observation.

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