Hantaviruses are not new. They have circulated for decades in rodent populations, particularly in rats and mice. Humans can become infected if they are bitten or scratched by a rodent or by inhaling aerosolised particles. These are tiny bits of rodent urine, faeces or saliva floating through the air that are contaminated by the virus….
From Ebola outbreaks in Central Africa to the complex evacuation of passengers aboard a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) opened its annual assembly on Monday as countries grapple with disease outbreaks, deep funding cuts and growing geopolitical tension. Health ministers and diplomats are in Geneva for the 79th World Health Assembly…
Cruise ships are convenient floating hotels by which to see far-flung parts of the world – but as an epidemiologist, I know they are also everything an infectious pathogen could want: thousands of strangers packed into enclosed spaces for days or weeks, sharing dining rooms and high-touch surfaces such as elevator buttons and handrails, breathing…
In February 2025, the classical pianist Betsy Arakawa died in her New Mexico home from a virus most people had never heard of. Her husband, the actor Gene Hackman, died a week later of heart disease. The pathogen that killed her was hantavirus, almost certainly picked up from deer mouse droppings on the property. Fourteen…
A complex international operation to disembark and repatriate passengers from the hantavirus-hit MV Hondius has concluded in Tenerife, with the World Health Organization (WHO) praising Spain’s leadership while warning that global coordination must continue in the weeks ahead. Almost 150 passengers and crew from 23 countries had been stranded aboard the Dutch-flagged cruise ship for…
A United States citizen who was on the hantavirus-hit MV Hondius cruise ship is the latest to test positive for the virus while a French traveller has developed symptoms as the ship is being evacuated and passengers are returning to their home countries. Passengers began flying home on military and government planes after the ship…
Another one of 17 Americans flown home has mild symptoms, the US health department says.
A Dutch-flagged cruise ship that was hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak reached Spain’s Canary Islands early Sunday morning, where health officials will begin the complex process of evacuating the passengers and most of the crew, and repatriating them to their respective countries. The MV Hondius, currently carrying nearly 150 people from more than 15…
World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived in Tenerife Saturday to personally oversee the painstaking process of evacuating more than 100 people from a cruise ship dealing with an outbreak of the rare and deadly hantavirus. Addressing the people of the Canary Islands, where the ship will anchor off the coast of its…
A general view of the cruise ship MV Hondius stationary off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on May 3, 2026. AFP | Getty Images For now, prediction market traders aren’t too worried about the hantavirus. Kalshi data shows only a 21% chance of the hantavirus outbreak will be a concern this…
