Officials trace cruise ship hantavirus contacts after deaths

Health officials are tracing passengers and contacts after a hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius, which has been linked to three deaths.

The ship is heading to Tenerife for evacuation and medical assessment.

One infected passenger briefly boarded a flight from South Africa to the Netherlands before dying, prompting authorities to monitor exposed travellers across several countries.

The incident has drawn in health agencies in the Netherlands, the UK and the US, among others.

The outbreak matters now because passengers have already disembarked in multiple countries, creating a wider contact-tracing challenge.

Officials are trying to identify who may have been exposed before the infection was recognised.

The earlier report on the same ship said a man in Zurich was treated for hantavirus after returning home from the voyage and later tested positive for the Andes strain.

That strain is the only one known to allow human-to-human transmission.

It also said there were eight hantavirus cases linked to the cruise ship, including five confirmed cases and one confirmed death, and that 23 passengers had disembarked and flown to their home countries without quarantine or tracking.

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