by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 8:10 AM ET, Sat May 9, 2026
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided an important update on the hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship on Friday, confirming that "the risk to the American public remains extremely low."
The agency has classified the outbreak as a Level 3 emergency response as the ship prepares to evacuate passengers in the Canary Islands this weekend.
"The U.S. government is actively monitoring and responding to a hantavirus outbreak linked to the M/V Hondius cruise ship. At this time, the risk to the American public remains extremely low," the CDC said.
"CDC developed health guidance for impacted American passengers, which was delivered by the U.S. Department of State. CDC's premier infectious disease experts are continuing to work closely with international partners to develop consistent monitoring guidance. This guidance will be distributed today, in addition to resources targeted for state and local health departments."
"The U.S. government's top priority is the safe repatriation of American passengers," the agency added. "These individuals are planned to be evacuated on a U.S. government medical repatriation flight to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, where they will be transported to the National Quarantine Center at the University of Nebraska, Omaha."
"The CDC deployed a team of epidemiologists and medical professionals to the Canary Islands, where the M/V Hondius is expected to dock," the CDC said. "The team will conduct an exposure risk assessment for each American passenger and provide recommendations for the level of monitoring required. An additional CDC team will deploy to Offutt AFB to support public health assessment of returning passengers."
The outbreak aboard the ship last month resulted in the deaths of three passengers and is believed to have spread to a KLM flight attendant.
UPDATE: Wednesday, May 6 at 8:40 a.m. ET
The MV Hondius from Oceanwide Expeditions, which was recently stuck off the coast of Western Africa due to suspected hantavirus cases that led to three deaths and illness in three other people, is making its way to the Canary Islands, with opposition from local leaders.
The ship was scheduled to dock in the Canary Islands on May 9, but opposition from the Canary Islands’ president might very well change that.
Three of the ill passengers had been medically evacuated to the Netherlands today, according to the BBC. One was a British doctor and passenger who’d been caring for the other ill passengers and was considered in “critical condition.”
Authorities are now calling her condition “stable.”
The other passengers evacuated were Dutch and German, and will all be flown to specialist hospitals in the Netherlands for treatment.
Yet while there’s relief for those ill, the rest of the passengers might not be able to disembark in the Canaries, as the islands’ President Fernando Clavijo told reporters, "If the passengers are safe and healthy, it does not make sense that they have to come to the Canary Islands to be repatriated, they could do that from the international airport of Cape Verde.”
There are still no definitive answers as to whether or not those sickened do indeed have hantavirus, though it is highly suspected.
That’s why Clavijo does not support the ship’s docking in the Canary Islands, where risk of spreading a rare form of hantavirus that can be contracted human-to-human could spread to the population there.
The Spanish health minister, however, explained that the plan was to minimize contact between passengers and the general public, with the 14 Spanish citizens onboard the ship going directly to a Spanish medical base for quarantine.
According to the Spanish authorities who spoke about the plan, the Canary Islands was requested as an evacuation point for the passengers by the World Health Organization.
As of now, the MV Hondius is carrying approximately 140 passengers who are not exhibiting any symptoms of illness.
ORIGINAL TEXT
Three individuals are dead with three more sick after a cruise ship is suspected of a rodent-born virus outbreak in the Atlantic Ocean.
The World Health Organization announced the news on May 3. According to CNN, the three passengers onboard Oceanwide Expeditions’ MV Hondius who died are suspected of having had hantavirus, which is a rodent-born illness.
The ship is currently anchored off the coast in Praia, Cape Verde, in western Africa. There are 149 people still onboard, including 17 Americans, and are being assessed for hantavirus.
Cape Verde’s health minister has allowed them to quarantine onboard. Local health authorities have made visits to the ship to provide medical care to two symptomatic crew members.
The victims are a 70-year-old Dutchman, who died on April 11; his wife, a 69-year-old woman, collapsed at an airport in South Africa while trying to fly home and later died at a hospital. It has not been confirmed whether she also died from hantavirus.
On April 27, a British national fell sick and is in critical condition in Johannesburg. According to health officials there, he is the only case confirmed to be hantavirus.
On May 2, a German national died onboard the ship, though the cruise line states his cause of death has not yet been determined.
Two crew members, one British and one Dutch, are currently requiring urgent care for respiratory symptoms. Hantavirus has not yet been ruled the cause for their symptoms.
“What’s happening right now is very real for all of us here. We’re not just a story. We’re not just headlines,” said travel vlogger and passenger onboard the MV Hondius Jake Rosmarin in a video posted on Instagram, his voice cracking with emotion. “We’re people, people with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home. There’s a lot of uncertainty and that’s the hardest part.”
While cruise ships occasionally receive headlines for norovirus outbreaks or other types of more common viral illnesses, hantavirus on a cruise ship is highly unusual.
Hantaviruses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are mostly spread by rodents and can cause two very serious, and potentially deadly, syndromes: hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS).
Hantavirus is mostly contracted through interacting with urine, droppings and saliva of mice or rats. A rare type, called the Andes virus, is transmissible from human to human, and is only found in Chile and Argentina, where the MV Hondius originated.
The most recent highly covered case of a hantavirus death was Betsy Arakawa, who died from HPS last year. She was the wife of late actor Gene Hackman. Both were found dead in their home.
“There is no need for panic or travel restrictions,” said Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe. WHO is coordinating with local medical professionals to determine whether those who died and those who are currently sick indeed do have hantavirus.
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