More than 140 passengers and crew are still on board. Some passengers got off the ship earlier in St. Helena, a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. About 30 of them are now being checked by health officials.
Twelve countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Singapore, are tracking these people to make sure they are not sick. The World Health Organization says it is helping the cruise company and several governments work together.
A hantavirus outbreak aboard the polar-style cruise ship MV Hondius has killed three passengers and confirmed five more cases, prompting an unusual multinational response. As of Friday, May 8, the vessel is sailing through Cape Verdean territorial waters toward Spain's Canary Islands, where it is expected to dock over the weekend with roughly 140 passengers and crew still aboard.
Health officials have identified the pathogen as the Andes virus, a rodent-borne strain of hantavirus and the only one known to transmit between humans. The World Health Organization has stressed that previous outbreaks have only seen limited person-to-person spread, but it has activated its emergency response and asked governments to monitor anyone who left the ship in recent weeks.
Twelve countries—Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States—are tracing former passengers. Roughly 30 people disembarked at the remote British Atlantic island of St. Helena on April 24, and infected travelers are now hospitalized in five different countries.
The Hondius, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, originally left Argentina for what should have been an Antarctic tourism cruise. With the Canary Islands authorities reluctant to allow it to dock until protocols are agreed, the ship has become an extraordinary floating quarantine, illustrating how quickly a contained outbreak can become an international public-health story.
A rare and lethal hantavirus outbreak aboard the polar expedition vessel MV Hondius has claimed three lives, confirmed at least five further infections and triggered a sweeping multinational tracing operation, even as the ship continues its languid passage through Cape Verdean territorial waters toward Spain's Canary Islands. Authorities in the archipelago have been cautious about clearance, leaving the Hondius an effectively floating quarantine carrying roughly 140 passengers and crew.
The pathogen has been identified as the Andes virus, a rodent-borne orthohantavirus and the only member of the hantavirus family with a documented capacity for sustained human-to-human transmission. The World Health Organization has nonetheless reiterated that historical outbreaks have produced only limited interpersonal spread, characterizing the broader epidemic risk as low while activating its emergency response architecture and urging precautionary surveillance.
Tracing has acquired an unusually global footprint. Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States are all monitoring travelers who departed the ship over the previous weeks. Roughly thirty passengers disembarked on the remote British overseas territory of Saint Helena on April 24, and confirmed cases are now being treated in five separate countries, underlining how a single contained vector can generate a logistically formidable response.
The Hondius, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, originally departed Argentina on what was billed as a flagship Antarctic itinerary. Its slow westward arc has since drawn Catholic attention from infectious-disease specialists, maritime regulators and tourism analysts, all of whom are treating the case as an instructive—and uncomfortable—stress test of how the global cruise industry, the WHO and a constellation of national health ministries coordinate when an outbreak crosses borders aboard a single hull.
A deadly hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius has killed three passengers and infected at least eight, prompting twelve countries—including the United States—to track passengers who disembarked. The vessel, currently in Cape Verdean waters, is expected to arrive in Spain's Canary Islands this weekend with more than 140 people still on board.

A cruise ship has a big problem. It is called the MV Hondius. People on the ship are very sick.
Three people on the ship have died. The sickness is from a virus called hantavirus. Eight people are sick now.
The ship left Argentina last month. It is going to the Canary Islands in Spain. It will arrive this weekend.
Many countries are looking for people who left the ship. They want to keep everyone safe. Doctors are working hard.
1What is the name of the ship?
2How many people on the ship have died?
3What is making people sick?
4Where is the ship going?
5When will the ship arrive?
6Three people on the ship have died.
7The ship is going to Japan.
8The sickness is from a virus.
9Doctors are working to help.
10The ship is called Titanic.
11The ship is called the MV ___.
12Three people on the ship have ___.
13The ship is going to the ___ Islands.