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Three Passengers Die on MV Hondius Cruise Ship from Andes Strain of Hantavirus
The deaths triggered an international effort to trace exposed passengers and crew on the expedition cruise ship. Virologists compared the outbreak conditions to those on the Diamond Princess during early COVID-19 transmission six years ago. Experts emphasized that human-to-human spread remains rare outside such confined environments.
May 8, 4:48 PM·3m read1 source
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Three passengers aboard the expedition cruise ship MV Hondius died, triggering an international scramble to trace passengers and crew exposed to the Andes strain of hantavirus now circulating on the vessel. The outbreak prompted virologists to examine how the self-contained environment of a cruise ship enabled spread of a virus typically linked to rodent contact. Dr.
Scott Pegan, a virologist at the UC Riverside School of Medicine, compared the Andes strain situation on the MV Hondius to aspects of the early COVID-19 strain on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was associated with early COVID-19 transmission six years before 2026.
Pegan said the transmission of the Andes hantavirus is nosocomial, meaning hospital-acquired or close-contact spread. “It’s a hypothesis that the virus builds up a higher titer in the saliva,” Pegan said.
He noted that a cruise ship cabin is functionally the same problem as a hospital room where protective measures are not taken. Dr. Marieke Rosenbaum, a veterinary public health expert at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, said the cruise ship represented perfect conditions for wider spread.
“The risk of human-to-human transmission of hantavirus is really low, and this cruise was just like the perfect condition for it to spread to more people than I think it might have otherwise,” Rosenbaum said. Hantavirus spreads almost entirely through aerosolized particles from rodent urine, droppings or saliva.
“Most cases, like in the United States, it’s usually because somebody is cleaning out a rat-infested area, and maybe not using sufficient PPE, mask, whatever, to do it,” Pegan said.
