Hantavirus Case Reported on Dutch Cruise Ship MV Hondius During Antarctic Voyage

A deadly outbreak of hantavirus occurred aboard the Dutch ship MV Hondius during a weekslong polar cruise that visited Antarctica, @ABC reported. The World Health Organization is investigating possible human-to-human transmission of the virus on the vessel.

The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and visited Antarctica and several isolated islands before following a common route south from Argentina toward Antarctica and then heading north up the coast of Africa.

Officials suspect the first infected person on the MV Hondius likely contracted hantavirus before boarding, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said. Officials have been told there are no rats on board the MV Hondius.

Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings. Cruise ships have previously seen rapid spread of diseases such as norovirus in close quarters, and a COVID-19 outbreak turned the Diamond Princess into an incubator for the virus in 2020.

The incident has drawn attention to soaring tourism in Antarctica, where most expeditions head to the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest-warming places in the world.

From 2002 to 2020, roughly 149 billion metric tons of Antarctic ice melted per year, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In 2024, more than 80,000 tourists touched down on the Antarctic continent and 36,000 viewed it from ships, data collected by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators showed.

Tourism to Antarctica has grown tenfold in the past 30 years, according to the International Union of Concerned Scientists. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That outbreak prompted the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators and others to harden rules for tourists’ conduct and hygiene. Visitors to Antarctica are told to stay away from animals and to avoid touching the ground with anything but their feet.

Crews and passengers use vacuums, disinfectants and brushes to scrub shoes and equipment clear of bugs, feathers, seeds and microbe-carrying dirt, Hanne Nielsen said.

“Between the tongues and the laces of the boots you can find a lot of things,” she said. Antarctica is governed by the Antarctic Treaty, which was signed in 1959. The Antarctic Treaty enshrined the territory as a scientific preserve used only for peaceful purposes, according to the Antarctic Treaty secretariat.

A series of rules that followed the Antarctic Treaty aim to ensure that all visits do not adversely impact the Antarctic environment or its scientific and aesthetic values, the secretariat stated. Companies and scientific ventures voluntarily comply with biosecurity guidelines and submit environmental impact assessments for Antarctic operations.

The treaty was written when tourism numbers were much lower, Claire Christian said.

Claire Christian is the executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. “The sites you will see in Antarctica are extremely unique and not replicable anywhere else on the planet — the whales, the seals, the penguins, the icebergs — it’s all really stunning and it makes a huge impression on people,” Claire Christian said.

“You can put a footprint in Antarctica and it’s still there 50 years later,” she added from Hiroshima, Japan, where she was preparing for an Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting.

Hanne Nielsen is a senior lecturer of Antarctic law at the University of Tasmania. ” Her colleagues at the university estimate the annual figure could triple or quadruple to over 400,000 visits in the next decade as costs fall. “Activity needs to be regulated appropriately, as you would with any of the world’s sensitive and precious ecological sites,” Claire Christian said.