Three Evacuated From Cruise Ship Amid Fatal Hantavirus Outbreak

Three patients have been evacuated from the cruise ship at the center of the deadly hantavirus outbreak, with 8 potential cases in total now being reported by the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO announced early Wednesday morning three suspected hantavirus case patients were evacuated from Oceanwide Expeditions’ MV Hondius cruise ship to receive medical care in the Netherlands. This comes after a local leader opposed allowing the ship to dock in the Canary Islands, which is run by Spain.

Swiss authorities confirmed a case in one passenger from the MV Hondius cruise ship after he responded to an email from the ship’s operator and went to a hospital in Zurich, where he began treatment, according to WHO.

As of Wednesday, there are 8 suspected cases, with 3 confirmed as hantavirus by laboratory testing. WHO says it’s “working with relevant countries to support international contact tracing, to ensure that those potentially exposed are monitored and that any further disease spread is limited.”

Authorities confirmed the Hondius is seeing an outbreak of the Andes hantavirus strain, which can be spread among people and is typically contracted through contact with feces, saliva and other organic matter from infected rodents, per the CDC.

We told you all about it when the virus was first detected on the ship traveling across the Atlantic Ocean for what was supposed to be a dream cruise that kicked off in southern Argentina on April 1. Three passengers on the ship have died so far.