European countries monitor cruise-linked hantavirus cases as WHO urges calm

European countries increased monitoring and isolation measures Thursday after a deadly hantavirus outbreak linked to the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius spread across multiple jurisdictions, while the World Health Organization (WHO) urged calm and stated that the risk of a larger epidemic is low.

The outbreak, involving the Andes strain of hantavirus, has so far resulted in five confirmed cases, three suspected infections, and three deaths among passengers connected to the voyage, according to WHO officials.

"It’s a specific, confined setting where people are interacting in prolonged close contact," WHO Director for Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations Abdirahman Mahamud told reporters in Geneva.

"We don't anticipate a large epidemic with the experience our member states have and the actions they have taken... We believe that this will not lead to subsequent chains of transmission," he said.

The MV Hondius, carrying approximately 150 passengers and crew from 23 nationalities, departed from Argentina and crossed the Atlantic before reporting a cluster of respiratory illnesses while sailing off Cape Verde.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the first confirmed cases had traveled through Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay before boarding the ship, including visits to bird-watching areas inhabited by rodents known to carry the Andes virus.

The WHO has informed 12 countries whose nationals disembarked earlier in Saint Helena: Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, the UK, and the US.

The ship is currently sailing toward the Canary Islands, with the WHO saying both the overall public health risk and the risk to the islands remain low.

Meanwhile, in Germany, a 65-year-old woman possibly exposed aboard the ship was transferred under strict infection-control measures to University Hospital Dusseldorf for precautionary testing.

"The patient is in stable condition," the hospital said, adding that there was no evidence of active infection so far.

Dutch authorities said a flight attendant from Haarlem was hospitalized at Amsterdam UMC after coming into contact with a Dutch passenger who later died a day after the flight, broadcaster NOS reported.

The Netherlands also confirmed that two evacuated passengers hospitalized in Leiden and Nijmegen tested positive for hantavirus after being transferred from the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius.

The French Health Ministry said five French nationals remain confined aboard the ship under medical supervision as officials coordinate repatriation plans at the European level.

France is also monitoring eight French nationals identified as contacts for a confirmed case during a flight between Saint Helena and Johannesburg.

One person developed mild symptoms and underwent diagnostic testing under isolation protocols.