world
MV Hondius Arrives in Tenerife After Hantavirus Outbreak on Argentina Cruise Kills Three
The Dutch-flagged cruise ship is expected to anchor off Tenerife early on 2026-05-11 under a one-nautical-mile security perimeter. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Spanish ministers are coordinating the operation involving 23 countries to repatriate passengers of more than 20 nationalities after three hantavirus deaths. No one aboard currently shows symptoms.
May 7, 3:36 PM·3m read14 sources
+11
Los Angeles TimesAudio version
Tap play to generate a narrated version.
The MV Hondius is scheduled to arrive off Tenerife before dawn on 2026-05-11 and will anchor at sea without docking as Spanish authorities prepare to transfer passengers and crew for medical screening. A one-nautical-mile security perimeter will be enforced around the vessel.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Spain’s Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska arrived on the island on 2026-05-10. European nations have dispatched planes to evacuate citizens from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship.
The EU health agency has classified all passengers on the vessel as high-risk contacts. Health authorities across four continents continue to track and monitor more than two dozen passengers who disembarked on April 24 from at least 12 countries before contact tracing was in place.
It was not until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger. Three people have died from hantavirus since the outbreak began.
A Dutch woman who tested positive died in South Africa on April 26. A German woman died on May 2. Five passengers who had already left the ship are confirmed infected. The ship’s unidentified doctor was among six people who tested positive while aboard.
The ship’s doctor and a guide who tested positive are isolated in the Netherlands. A British man is hospitalized in South Africa and a Swiss man in Switzerland.
The outbreak has been linked to a landfill site in the southernmost tip of Argentina that is popular with birdwatchers. Dr. Stephen Kornfeld, an oncologist from Bend, Oregon, participated in bird-watching excursions during the cruise and became the de facto head doctor after the ship’s physician fell ill.
“It just kind of escalated to within 24 hours after I stepped in. One of the patients died and the other two, the physician and one of the other staff members, were getting progressively sicker, and then the first news of hantavirus came out,” Kornfeld said.
