Hantavirus Panic or Precaution? U.S. Monitoring Expands Beyond Cruise Cluster

Hantavirus Panic or Precaution? U.S. Monitoring Expands Beyond Cruise Cluster

Last week, I reported on a hantavirus outbreak that 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., were tracking dozens of passengers who traveled aboard the ship.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classified it as a Level 3 emergency response, indicating the risk to the general population was low.

Now it is being reported that 5 Americans who were not aboard the MV Hondius are being monitored for hantavirus exposure symptoms.

Two New Jersey residents, two Marylanders, and one Californian are in isolation under the strict supervision of health department officials after they all took international flights that included passengers from the virus-stricken cruise.

None has exhibited any symptoms, and it’s unclear if they contracted the virus.

Seventeen Americans were aboard the Dutch expedition cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak.

…Only one of the 17 Americans tested positive for the virus after the evacuation. That individual and another who was showing symptoms were transferred to Emory University for further evaluation, while the other 15 are quarantining at a world-class medical center in Nebraska.

Patient zero in this case turns out to be Dutch ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, who went to a local dump to view specimens despite warnings from local residents. The area is known to attract rodents that carry the Andes strain of the hantavirus, the only strain of that virus known to transmit from human to human.

The spot, overrun with trash, is avoided like the plague by its residents, but serves as a pilgrimage point for birdwatchers from all over the world in search of a rare creature — the white-throated caracara, nicknamed Darwin’s caracara after famed evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin, the first to collect it.

The Ushuaia landfill is where Argentinian authorities suspect the Dutch couple inhaled particles from the feces of long-tailed pygmy rice rats, which carry the feared Andes strain of the hantavirus — the only form known to transmit from human to human.

“It is common for birdwatchers to visit landfills because there are many birds there,” Gastón Bretti, a photographer and local guide told Ansa Latina.

“It’s a mountain of waste that today far exceeds the limit initially established by the authorities,” he said of the unsightly place.

'Patient Zero' in deadly hantavirus cruise ship outbreak was Dutch ornithologist Leo Schilperoord https://t.co/Za24dmfDHJ pic.twitter.com/RHcFSy4mrw

— New York Post (@nypost) May 9, 2026

Many are wondering if this is a return to the COVID playbook, especially in light of a recent press conference by New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

We know we’ve got outstanding researchers here in New York.

Our Wadsworth laboratory is second-to-none. So I activated them to start preparing for worst case scenarios and hope they don’t come.

But as governo, I would not be prepared for anything that could happen.

Here we go again, just in time for the midterms! pic.twitter.com/CFhb05tLqr

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) May 12, 2026

It is being noted that hantavirus infects 10,000 to 100,000 people each year. The cases occur in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. While worrisome for those aboard the ship, why is there all the media attention?

Dr. David Bell (a public health physician and biotech consultant) suggests it might be a ploy to persuade the U.S. to rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO). He shares his thoughts in the Daily Skeptic:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 10,000 to 100,000 hantavirus cases occur every year, spread across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. The current media coverage and WHO news conferences therefore concern about one thousandth of the cases expected this year. Europe averages about 2,000 to 5,000 – they simply have not been newsworthy.

Hantavirus is transmitted from mice and rats through their faeces, urine, saliva or bite. The Andean variety, which occurred on the cruise ship, can also sometimes transmit from a sick infected person. However, as the low number of cases on the ship demonstrates, the risk of human-to-human transmission is not great. It is, however, a nasty virus, with reported mortality around 15% of cases and sometimes significantly higher.

So, among the 170,000 average deaths in the world each day, and thousands from the WHO’s traditional priority diseases, why the excitement over Hantavirus? Why the pictures of hazmat-suited emergency response crews and desperate contact tracing when we don’t usually notice? Why is the Director-General of the entire WHO spending so much time on this, when diseases of poverty are rising and basics such as nutrition funding are falling? A fascinating question.

The WHO wants the United States and Argentina to rejoin, and WHO Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus has raised this in his hantavirus briefings.

"Why is the WHO Driving a Hantavirus Panic?"

Up to "100,000 hantavirus cases occur every year… WHO is making all the mileage it can from the fear created around this epidemiologically irrelevant event."https://t.co/JiJXa9t0vE

— Together (@Togetherdec) May 12, 2026

As I noted in March, the WHO budget took a $1 billion hit when the U.S. withdrew.

As an added bonus, politicians like Hochul will likely use their restrained response to show COVID mistakes will not be repeated…which may prove useful in the midterms.

So, expect the hanta-drama to continue until the media decides to clutch its collective pearls over something else.

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