Hantavirus death prompts WHO to trace passengers on Africa flight

Geneva: Two hantavirus cases have been confirmed and five others are suspected among people on a cruise ship stuck off Cape Verde, including three who have died, the WHO said Tuesday.

The World Health Organization said it was trying to contact passengers on an April 25 flight between Saint Helena and Johannesburg, taken by one of the sickened cruise ship passengers, who died the next day.

"As of 4 May 2026, seven cases (two laboratory confirmed cases of hantavirus and five suspected cases) have been identified, including three deaths, one critically ill patient and three individuals reporting mild symptoms," the United Nations health agency said in a statement.


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During the cruise, which was travelling from Ushuaia in Argentina to Cape Verde off west Africa, "illness onset occurred between 6 and 28 April 2026," WHO said.

It was "characterised by fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, rapid progression to pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and shock," it said, adding that "further investigations are ongoing".

WHO stressed that it assessed the risk to the global population from outbreak as "low", adding that it would continue to monitor the situation.

Passengers from Britain, Spain and the United States, as well as crew from the Philippines, were among 23 nationalities aboard the MV Hondius, which WHO said was currently carrying 147 people.

A British passenger was in intensive care in Johannesburg and two crew -- one British and the other Dutch -- required "urgent medical care", the ship's operator Oceanwide Expeditions said in a statement.

Three of the identified cases were no longer on the ship and four remained on board, including a German who died on Saturday.

The first deaths among the passengers were a Dutch couple -- a husband who died on board on April 11 and his wife who died after she disembarked the boat in St Helena to accompany his body, the operator said.

WHO said that the wife who left the ship with her dead husband on April 24, had been suffering from "gastrointestinal symptoms".

"She subsequently deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, on 25 April," it said, adding that "she later died upon arrival at the emergency department on 26 April".

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"On 4 May, the case was subsequently confirmed by PCR with hantavirus infection," it said, stressing that "contact tracing for passengers on the flight has been initiated".

Human hantavirus infection is a rare but severe and potentially deadly disease that is primarily acquired through contact with the urine, faeces, or saliva of infected rodents, WHO said.

However, human-to-human transmission has also been reported in previous outbreaks.