CDC Classifies Cruise Ship Hantavirus Outbreak as a ‘Level 3’ Emergency Response
Health officials in at least a dozen countries are monitoring passengers who have since returned home after the ship docked.
The last time I wrote about the rat-borne illness hantavirus, it was after iconic actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a contributing factor.
The report indicated he passed alone and was abandoned in his home after his caretaker wife had died suddenly of a hantavirus.
The disease is back in the news, as a hantavirus outbreak has occurred on the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius, causing several severe illnesses and at least three deaths.
Health officials in at least a dozen countries, including the U.S., are tracking dozens of passengers who traveled aboard the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak.
Those passengers have dispersed across the world and were in five states as of Thursday afternoon: Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Virginia. Health officials in those states said the former passengers, who are not being publicly identified, have not shown any symptoms.
Despite the widening international response, World Health Organization officials say the outbreak is not the start of a new pandemic or epidemic.
…The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it and the State Department are closely monitoring the status of Americans on the ship, adding that “risk to the American public is extremely low.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has classified this as a “Level 3” emergency response.
The designation is the lowest level of emergency activation, signifying that the risk to the general public remains low — in line with information given by the World Health Organization earlier Thursday.
The CDC is actively monitoring the situation, including by activating the emergency centers, sources told ABC News Thursday.
This typically signals that a designated emergency team has been set up to handle hantavirus, the outlet reported. Epidemiologists, scientists and physicians may be reassigned to monitor and assist with the disease response.
CDC classifies Hantavirus outbreak as a 'Level 3' emergency response: report https://t.co/MkIehUHUz4 pic.twitter.com/RZn5eRhuV3
— New York Post (@nypost) May 8, 2026
One has to wonder about the conditions aboard this ship. Hantavirus is a rare but potentially deadly virus spread by rodents through their saliva, droppings, and urine..so one has to wonder exactly how these cruisers were exposed.
Hantavirus infection can occur one to eight weeks after exposure. Initial symptoms resemble the flu, but as the virus multiplies in the body, it can attack the lungs and cardiovascular system. The fluid build-up in the lungs, heart damage, and lowered blood pressure can result in sudden organ failure.
American passengers are now being monitored by state public health authorities.
The Georgia Department of Public Health is monitoring two residents, it said in a statement. They “are currently in good health and show no signs of infection,” the department said, and they are following recommendations from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The California Department of Public Health was notified by the C.D.C. that California residents had been on the MV Hondius as well, said Robert Barsanti, a spokesman for the department. The agency is assisting local health authorities with monitoring, he said, but did not disclose how many residents were under monitoring. “There is no information that the California residents are ill or infected,” Mr. Barsanti said. “At this time, the risk to public health in California is low.”
The Arizona Department of Health Services received notification that one resident was a passenger on the ship, according to a spokeswoman. “This individual is not symptomatic and is being monitored,” she added.
A hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in the Atlantic has killed three people and left nearly 150 passengers isolated in their cabins, @thomasrhanson reports, raising a key question: should we be worried? While @DrLaPook says the risk to the general public remains low, health… pic.twitter.com/htMsaHKMFs
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 8, 2026
Presently, there are no vaccines for this relatively rare disease. However, the development of something effective for this pathogen is likely years away.
Experts say hantavirus vaccine efforts have repeatedly stalled, in part because outbreaks tend to occur sporadically and disproportionately affect poorer countries where there is less incentive for drugmakers to invest.
“Our funding agencies don’t put a lot of money into this, because it’s likely not to cause the next epidemic or pandemic,” said Sabra Klein, a professor in the molecular microbiology and immunology department at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But these are hemorrhagic fever viruses, so when they occur, they’re scary, and they do wreak havoc.”
The founders of EnsiliTech, a U.K.-based biotech company, began work on the vaccine 15 years ago.
“We looked at hantavirus and saw it was pretty neglected,” said Matt Slade, a company co-founder and its chief of staff. “There wasn’t really any work in the sector.”
It’s doubtful that hantavirus has morphed into a super-spreader. What likely happened is that, in the race to cut corners and serve more passengers for better profit margins, housekeeping efforts were as thorough as needed.
In conclusion, if this outbreak tells us anything, it’s that even in an age of high-tech monitoring and global health coordination, the basics still matter.
While officials insist the public risk remains low, the idea that paying passengers could be exposed to a rodent-borne pathogen on a supposedly well-managed vessel raises uncomfortable questions about sanitation standards, oversight, and the relentless push for profit over prudence.
Hantavirus may not be the next pandemic, but it is a stark reminder that when routine hygiene and accountability slip, nature has a way of exploiting the gap—often with deadly efficiency.
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Comments
I’ve seen 28 Days Later…this sounds like the start of it.
Instead of a quarantine, they allowing people to do self-monitoring. They can go home, move about in the community, just make sure to check your temperature and report any symptoms. All people will be 100% compliant. No problemo.
Since this virus has such a long incubation period—45 days—a person could feel fine, travel on three different planes, then suddenly become highly infectious in a crowded city.
Your assumption that the virus spread because of ‘hygeine’, your lack of knowledge about the strain and it’s uniqueness, and what and where the couple believed to be the source were doing before the outbreak makes your lack of professionality quite evident.
So the UN says its not the start..
just like when the cops say…there is not a danger to the community when they dont have the bad people in custody etc etc
who was captain of the vessel??
a dr faucci ??
From the little that I have read, likely not a public health issue. Apparently a Dutch couple from the cruise ship went bird watching in an Argentine landfill where they likely encountered a rodent carrying the Andes variant of the Hanta virus.
The Andes variant of the Hanta virus natural host is the long-tailed pygmy rice rat which might find a garbage dump a great place to live. The Andes variant is the only Hanta virus that has had demonstrated human to human transmission. 40% death rate from the Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. The virus infects the lining of the small blood vessels in the lungs, the vessels leak fluid into the lung “air spaces” and the patient basically drowns.
From the few documented cases of human to human transfer, the time “window” for transmission is fairly short after the onset of symptoms.
Stop coming here with your facts!
Can’t you see we’re trying to scare the 💩 out the weak minded?
How are we supposed to manipulate the midterms without a crisis!
Add in UFO files, and the odor of Tuna.
Thank you for the information. I have little faith in anything that the CDC says after they sold their credibility a few years ago.
And yet the cruise ship doc is also infected
“The Andes variant is the only Hanta virus that has had demonstrated human to human transmission.”
And even so, transmission which is “rare and inefficient compared to airborne viruses like flu or measles. It requires close and prolonged contact, typically with symptomatic individuals.”
Hm, sounds like Monkeypox all over again.
Arizona is no stranger to hantaviruses. The rezzes are relatively rife with it. I’m much more likely to contract it sweeping out a neglected outbuilding than from any other person.
This is a perfect example of how the public cannot discern between risks and hazards. And is a fantastic example of fearmongering on the part of the press.
Hantavirus is hazardous, but your risk of being infected is low.
Much like your risk of being eaten by a shark in Nebraska is low.
What is missing in this discussion is a concerted effort on the part of the environazi movement to remove rodenticides from the market in the United States.
Hantavirus is vectored by rats, one of a number of human diseases these disgusting creatures are responsible for carrying. Get rid of rodenticides and you’ll have more rats. If you have more rats, you’ll have more rat vectored diseases.
You might say that your chances of being killed by an environmental zealot are much higher than dying of a virus on a ship halfway around the world.
Yeah, but some of us are leaving Ushuaia on a boat trip similar to this one later in the year, including a side-trek to an Argentina national park, so we’re a little more interested in what happened.
FWIW, 86 Hanta virus infections reported in Argentina in 2025. Natural habitat for the rice rat is:
“Primary range: Southern Andes (from northwestern Argentina southward to about 50°S in Patagonia), with an outlying population in eastern Argentina. It is a mountain species strongly associated with Andean and Patagonian environments.”
“You might say that your chances of being killed by an environmental zealot are much higher than dying of a virus on a ship halfway around the world.”
I think the malaria numbers after the ban on DDT already cinch this award.
Lefties on bluesky are filling their diapers because the USA is no longer a member of WHO, so that makes this outbreak on a Dutch ship cruising the Atlantic Trump’s fault.
No other explanation possible. Real GeNiUs over there.
They are dreaming of another COVIDesque ballot swindle. Ngth. It’s not that transmissible despite its mortality rate.
Ever since Trump renamed the Atlantic to the Sea of America.
So we have a 40% ish mortality rate in something with fairly low transmission rate with an outbreak contained on a cruise ship….but ‘nothing to see, move along’? Yet the same ‘authorities’ who blew up the economy, trampled individual liberty, shut down small business (but not big box stores), closed schools, gyms and Churches (but not liquor stores) demanded compliance with arbitrary ‘safe distances’, demanded wearing masks that they (and most of us) knew were ineffective, tried to mandate ‘jab’ after changing the official definition of vaccine to fit their narrative ….all those and more for Rona which had less than a 1% fatality rate and for which natural immunity would serve to defeat Rona as it mutated to even less dangerous versions, just as predicted…. these same ‘authorities’ decided ‘quarantine, we don’t need no sticking quarantine’ for the passengers/crew experiencing this far more deadly outbreak?
The public health community/authorities need some adult supervision by non expert generalists or we need to line them up against the wall. Personally I lean towards the latter.
Hmm, something tells me this is more about “We have an election to steal.” Seen this movie before, not doing it again. Anybody tries that covid crap around me again is getting shot.
When I first heard about Hanta Virus on a cruise ship, I assumed the ship must be filthy and overrun by rodents. I had no idea there was a version of Hanta that spread person to person. If the Andes virus were that easy to catch and transmit, we would have all heard about this decades ago. NM, has the highest incident of Hanta in the USA and that still only results in a handful of cases per year. We also have the highest incident of plague cases in the country, again with only one or two cases in the average year. Everyone knows it exists but the chances of being infected are very, very, low.
Read Dr. Malone’s statement on how Hanta virus most likely happened on board the ship after docking in Argentina where the virus is endemic. Logistics of mice running around on food shipments, leaving droppings, urine, etc. As for the birdwatchers, that’s unlikely they got it while birdwatching.
Forget it. They blew their wad on Covid. Nobody’s going to take them seriously about a virus spread by an Argentine rat instead of a Chinese rat.
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