The World Health Organization (WHO) is taking measures to mitigate the spread of hantavirus after eight cases, three of which resulted in death, were reported following an outbreak on a cruise ship.
So far, five of eight cases have been confirmed as hantavirus, according to the WHO. The organization is investigating the spread of the virus and developing plans for the remaining passengers to disembark from the ship, the MV Hondius.
While the situation is serious, WHO officials stressed during a Thursday news conference that the public health risk remains low.
Here’s everything that happened on May 7, 2026:
Passenger shares experience on cruise ship
A passenger who set sail on the MV Hondius cruise ship that’s now the centre of a hantavirus outbreak is sharing his story.
Ruhi Chenet is one of the more than two dozen people from 12 different countries who left the ship two weeks ago, unaware of the outbreak that was taking place.
Speaking from Istanbul, he tells CTV News he boarded the ship from Argentina on April 1. Less than two weeks later, the captain of the MV Hondius informed those on board that a passenger had died.
At the time, Chenet pulled out his phone and recorded the captain as he spoke to passengers, in case it was something serious. The captain told everyone in the room that it was his belief that the death “was due to natural causes,” unaware that there was a virus potentially spreading on the cruise ship.
Chenet told CTV News that the captain’s notification to passengers put him at ease, and he had no concerns about his health and safety.
“People were socializing with each other, we had our meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner all together in the dinning room, sitting side by side. The dining room was packed and fit about 150 people,” said Chenet.
Adrian Ghobrial, CTV News senior correspondent
‘There will likely be more cases’: expert
The attempt to supress the spread of hantavirus is being handled well by national public health authorities, according to an infectious disease expert.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CTV National News anchor Sandie Rinaldo Thursday that the virus is not new and is unlikely to get out of control as COVID-19 did.
He recalled the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was docked off Japan’s coast in February 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We didn’t really know much about the virus at the time,” he said, adding that it was a “novel virus” then.
But scientists have known about the hantavirus since the late ‘90s and have quelled outbreaks with public health measures, Bogoch said.
The outbreak happening on a cruise ship complicates response plans, Bogoch said, warning “there will likely be more cases.”
He added that due to the virus’ long incubation period, “there were probably multiple exposures, and some people will become symptomatic in the days and weeks ahead.”
“Everyone needs to take responsibility for their citizens on board ensuring that they have access to appropriate medical care, ensuring that the public health departments in the various countries can do the appropriate contact tracing.”
Joe Van Wonderen, CTVNews.ca journalist
‘It’s a completely different virus’
Epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Labos says that, while Canadians might see parallels between the hantavirus outbreak and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to keep in mind that they are not the same virus.
“The likelihood that this is going to turn into a major public health emergency … is obviously very, very low.”
Luca Caruso-Moro, CTVNews.ca journalist
Quebecer not in close proximity: minister
Quebec Health Minister Sonia Bélanger confirmed Thursday that a Quebecer was on the same flight as a passenger afflicted with hantavirus.
“According to our information, it doesn’t seem like they were in close proximity, and the risk of transmission is very low,” she said. “We remain on the alert.”
Bélanger added that the Quebecer in question is in isolation and not exhibiting any symptoms.
The minister stated that the risk to the general population remains “very low” and that “human to human” transmission is “extremely rare.”
Rachel Lau, CTV News Montreal digital reporter
Where did it start?
The ship departed from Argentina and investigations into the outbreak’s source are focusing there.
The Dutch couple that presented the first two cases had traveled through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a bird-watching trip before boarding the ship, the WHO said. They visited sites where the species of rat known to carry Andes virus was present.
Argentina’s Health Ministry has zeroed in on the town of Ushuaia in their investigation, but they’ve yet to dispatch the team, according to a written statement given to AP. Scientists from the state-funded Malbran Institute planned to travel to Ushuaia “in the coming days,” the statement said.
Once in Ushuaia, a 3.5-hour flight from Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, the experts will analyze rodents at the trash heap there to see if they carry the Andes virus, officials said.
The WHO is working with health authorities in Argentina to understand the couple’s movements and has arranged to ship 2,500 diagnostic kits from Argentina to laboratories in five countries.
Argentina’s health ministry said there were 28 deaths from hantavirus last year, up from an average mortality rate of 15 in the five years before that. Nearly a third of cases last year were fatal, it said.
The Associated Press
Ontario residents in isolation: health minister
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones says that two Ontario residents who were on a cruise ship that’s been hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak are currently in isolation but are not believed to be at risk of transmitting the virus.
Jones made the comment during an unrelated news conference on Thursday afternoon.
“The two individuals are in fact Ontario residents and they are actively being monitored and working with local public health authorities on a daily basis to make sure the isolation is occurring. That has been going on since they returned home,” Jones said.
Jones said that she anticipates that the incubation and monitoring period for any Ontarians potentially exposed to hantavirus will be around 30 days, though she said that the situation is “fluid.”
“We are getting regular updates on not only these two individuals but preparing to see if there are any other individuals who could perhaps return to Canada and Ontario,” she said.
Full story here.
Chris Fox, CP24.com and CTVNewsToronto.ca journalist
Countries affected by outbreak
- The Netherlands: Three passengers arrived in the Netherlands for treatment, the vessel’s operator Oceanwide Expeditions said Thursday. Two of the passengers are in serious condition, while the third evacuee.
- South Africa: A British national who fell sick with hantavirus onboard the vessel on April 27 was transferred to a private medical facility in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he remains in intensive
- Switzerland: On Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a passenger who returned to Switzerland after leaving the ship tested positive and is being treated in Zurich.
- U.K.: In the U.K., the Health Security Agency said two British nationals who left the ship at St. Helena on April 24 are isolating at home as a precaution. The agency said it is aware of five other British nationals who disembarked the vessel that day, including four who are still there.
- U.S.: Health authorities in the United States said they are monitoring three people who previously disembarked and returned home.
- Singapore: Two Singaporean residents are self-isolating and being tested for hantavirus, the country’s Communicable Diseases Agency said Thursday.
- France: Eight French nationals who were not on the cruise, have been identified as close contacts of a confirmed case since they were on the same international flight, according to the French health ministry.
Kara Fox, CNN
Trump administration’s effect
Lloyd Axworthy, former foreign affairs minister under Jean Chrétien’s government, has raised concerns about the world’s ability to respond to future global health emergencies in the wake of the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship.
He also had sharp words for the Trump administration, which withdrew from the the World Health Organization in January.
“The agency that has some competence, the WHO, has been substantially undermined by the Trump government’s efforts to deconstruct international rules and procedures,” he told CTV News Channel on Thursday.
“Here’s one of those areas (where) you’ve got close to 40 million people here on cruise ships and subjected to a very fragmented system of response whenever there’s an outbreak of health or accident or other things,” he added.
“I think it’s also time to raise some questions of, do we continue in this sort of piecemeal fashion or do we try again to rebuild some sort of international capacity and resources to manage it to the benefit of all those involved?”
Christl Dabu, CTVNews.ca journalist
Tracing contacts
Authorities in South Africa are also trying to trace contacts of any passengers who previously got off the ship. They have focused mainly on an April 25 flight from St. Helena to Johannesburg, the day after passengers disembarked there.
A French citizen with “benign symptoms” is in isolation and undergoing medical tests, after being identified as a contact case linked to the ship passenger who flew April 25 from St. Helena to Johannesburg and was confirmed to have hantavirus, the French Health Ministry said in a statement Thursday.
The Dutch woman from the cruise ship who later died in South Africa was on that St. Helena-Johannesburg flight, officials have said. It’s not known how many other cruise passengers also were among the 88 people on it, but flights from St. Helena go to South Africa and are rare, normally once a week.
The body of the third fatality, a German woman, is also still on board the ship after she died on May 2.
The Associated Press
Third Canadian in Quebec
In a statement, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says a third affected Canadian is now in Quebec. Two others were in Ontario.
All three are asymptomatic and were asked to self-isolate.
Luca Caruso-Moro, CTVNews.ca journalist
Two Canadians now in Ontario
Two Canadians who disembarked a cruise ship that’s been hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak are in Ontario and actively being monitored, the province’s health minister says.
The Canadian Press
Monitoring symptoms is game of ‘hurry up and wait’
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch says monitoring the three Canadians who are in isolation is a game of “hurry up and wait.”
“It’s basically monitoring for signs and symptoms of infection and if people do develop such symptoms, then getting (them) medical care,” Bogoch told CTV News Channel on Thursday.
“You know, we don’t have a prophylaxis for this. We don’t have a dedicated antiviral for this particular type of infection,” he said, adding the WHO is doing a good job of ensuring infected people receive appropriate medical care.
Based on everything that is known about hantavirus at the moment, Bogoch says the illness “looks like an individual risk,” instead of a global one.
“Prior outbreaks have been quelled with pretty straightforward public health interventions.”
Kayla Thompson, CTVNews.ca journalist
Not clear where virus originated: epidemiologist
Infection control epidemiologist Colin Furness says cruise ships are a tricky place for viral outbreaks.
“Cruise ships are dangerous places because you have a lot of people packed together and then they go to destinations that don’t have giant facilities to deal with such adverse events,” he told CTV News Channel on Thursday.
Furness says another problem is that it’s not confirmed whether hantavirus originated on the ship or if it was brought on board.
“It’s really unclear what we could do to prevent something like this, given that we’re not sure about how it started,” he says. “And let’s be clear, this is really rare.”
Kayla Thompson, CTVNews.ca journalist
‘This is not going to produce a huge pandemic’
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Gerald Evans says hantavirus is nothing like COVID-19.
“This is not like some of the respiratory viruses we deal with all the time,” Evans told CTV News Channel on Thursday, citing SARS and influenza as examples.
Evans says despite the “substantial mortality rate, for which we have no treatment, there is no question that this is not like COVID-19.”
He says contact tracing efforts will help prevent the spread of the virus, and will become “expansive” now, due to cruise ship passengers disembarking the ship at different ports.
“That means you’re involving lots of different countries where they may have disembarked.”
Kayla Thompson, CTVNews.ca journalist
Risk is ‘very low’: Toronto’s top doctor
With two Canadians now confirmed to be in Ontario, Toronto’s top doctor Michelle Murti says she “can’t provide any additional information” but reassures residents that the risk of transmission is “very low.”
“What I can say is that this is the day-to-day work of public health… we’re following the best practices around infection control and making sure that as we identify individuals who may have been exposed, that they’re getting the follow up and care they need.”
Murti adds that most cases typically occur in other provinces such as BC, Manitoba and Quebec, emphasizing “but even then, we (Ontario) have only had 109 cases since 1989.”
She says her team is coordinating with provincial and federal officials but is reassuring that the current risk to Torontonians is very low and “not common” in the province.
Jermaine Wilson, CTVNewsToronto.ca journalist
Consular officials heading to Tenerife
Canadian consular officials are en route to Spain’s Tenerife, where the cruise ship is expected to dock in a few days, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Thursday.
Anand said Canada has set up a “strategic response team” to respond to the hantavirus outbreak, though she did not go into detail during a brief appearance with reporters in Ottawa. She said the team involved the “whole of government.”
Consular services will be offered to the Canadians onboard the ship. Anand also said she’s been in contact with her counterparts in Spain and the U.K. to co-ordinate efforts and support each others’ citizens.
Luca Caruso-Moro, CTVNews.ca journalist
Two Canadians among passengers
Two Canadians are among the 30 passengers who disembarked a cruise ship that’s been hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak.
Ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions says the individuals left the boat on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena on April 24.
The Canadian Press
Nationals from 12 countries left ship
More than two dozen passengers from at least 12 different countries left a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak on April 24 without contact tracing, nearly two weeks after the first passenger died on board, the ship operator and Dutch officials said Thursday.
The news raised concerns that the virus could spread as travellers returned home, although experts say the risk to the wider public is considered low as hantavirus isn’t easily transmitted between people.
The Associated Press. Read the full story here.
The first case
WHO officials say the first case was detected in a male passenger who developed symptoms on April 6. He died on April 11.
No samples were taken at the time, because crew staff did not suspect he had been infected with hantavirus.
The man’s wife was also symptomatic, and deboarded in Saint Helena, a small island in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Angola.
Her symptoms worsened during a flight to Johannesburg on April 25 and she died the following day.
Luca Caruso-Moro, CTVNews.ca journalist
Canada, other countries in contact with WHO
The World Health Organization said Thursday it had informed 12 countries that its nationals had disembarked the MV Hondius cruise ship on the remote British island of Saint Helena.
“Those 12 countries are Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States of America,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing in Geneva.
AFP
More cases possible
The WHO says it’s possible more cases will be reported and confirmed in the coming days as infected people develop symptoms. The organization says it has reached out to relevant authorities for people who may have had contact with infected passengers.
Luca Caruso-Moro, CTVNews.ca journalist
2,500 diagnostic kits
The WHO said Thursday that Argentina would send 2,500 hantavirus diagnostic kits to labs in five countries.
AFP
