From PBS NewsHour.

A suspected hantavirus outbreak has killed three cruise ship passengers and seriously sickened several others.

The Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius was on a multi-week trip. It left Argentina several weeks ago, stopping at Antarctica and several South Atlantic islands on the way to its final destination: Spain’s Canary Islands.

But the ship is now sitting off the coast of Cape Verde near West Africa, awaiting help after two cases of hantavirus infection were confirmed in a lab.

Hantavirus is a family of viruses that can be found around the world and are mainly spread by infected rodents’ urine or feces to humans.  In a briefing Tuesday, the World Health Organization said rare human-to-human transmission aboard the ship “can’t be ruled out,” though how passengers first contracted the virus remains under investigation.

Hantavirus infections begin with flu-like symptoms like body aches and fever but can progress to shortness of breath, followed by lung or heart failure. The virus made headlines in 2025, when the late actor Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from the infection. There is not a specific cure or treatment.

In this case, a 70-year-old Dutch man was the first victim, dying on the ship after presenting with a fever, headache, abdominal pain and diarrhea on April 11. His wife died soon after at an airport in South Africa while trying to board an airplane back to the Netherlands. Another man, a German national, died on the ship Saturday.

Two ill patients are being prepared for medical evacuation. Afterwards, the ship will continue on to the Canary Islands.

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