Three Dead in Hantavirus Outbreak Aboard MV Hondius as 149 Are Stranded Off Cape Verde

A suspected hantavirus outbreak aboard the Dutch-flagged expedition cruise ship MV Hondius has killed three passengers and sickened at least three more, the World Health Organization said Monday, leaving 149 people — including 17 Americans — confined aboard the vessel as it lies anchored off Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, awaiting medical evacuation.

Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the WHO's regional director for Europe, said one case has been laboratory-confirmed and five more are presumed positive. The ship's operator, Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions, said the first victim, a 70-year-old Dutch man, fell ill in mid-April and died on April 11; his body was offloaded at the British territory of Saint Helena. His wife collapsed at a South African airport during a partial disembarkation and was pronounced dead at hospital. A German national died aboard ship on May 2; his remains have not been removed.

The Hondius, an ice-strengthened vessel that left Ushuaia, Argentina, in early April, was midway through a seven-week trans-Atlantic voyage that had taken passengers from Antarctica to the Falkland Islands and on toward the Canary Islands when illness spread through the cabins. The ship is carrying 88 passengers and 61 crew from 23 nationalities, including four Canadians, two Irish citizens and a small contingent of British, Dutch and German travelers.

Cape Verdean port authorities, citing public-health concerns, have refused permission for the ship to dock. Dr. Ann Lindstrand, the WHO's senior official on the ground in Cape Verde, said evacuation logistics are being negotiated with Spanish health authorities to allow possible disembarkation at Las Palmas or Tenerife in the Canaries. Two crew members showing symptoms — one British and one Dutch — are being prioritized for repatriation alongside the body of the German passenger.

Hantaviruses are a family of rodent-borne pathogens that can cause severe pulmonary or renal disease in humans, with case-fatality rates as high as 38 percent for the Sin Nombre strain seen in the Americas. They are usually contracted by inhaling dust contaminated with deer-mouse urine or feces; person-to-person transmission is extremely rare, which has puzzled epidemiologists looking at the cluster aboard the Hondius. WHO investigators are exploring the possibility that contaminated cargo or food shipments boarded in South America may have introduced the rodents to the vessel.

For now, passengers remain locked in their cabins, receiving meals through doors and communicating with worried families by satellite. Oceanwide said it is "doing everything in our power to bring our guests safely to shore as quickly as conditions and authorities allow." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a Monday-evening advisory, said it is monitoring the 17 American passengers and coordinating with WHO on a repatriation plan.