Passengers start to disembark cruise ship stricken by hantavirus

Key Points:

• The Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius, carrying nearly 150 passengers from over 15 countries, arrived in Spain's Canary Islands after a hantavirus outbreak onboard resulted in at least nine cases and three fatalities, including a Dutch couple and a German woman.
• Passengers and some crew members are being evacuated in a phased plan, starting with Spanish passengers, followed by others based on their destination countries, with Americans being flown back to the U.S. for quarantine at a specialized medical center.
• The CDC is conducting an exposure risk assessment for American passengers, while WHO and other health organizations are coordinating the evacuation and response; the public risk is considered low as hantavirus transmission requires close contact and is not spread by asymptomatic individuals.
• The outbreak's source is under investigation, but the Dutch couple who died had recently traveled in South America, where the Andes strain of hantavirus—capable of human-to-human transmission—is present; symptoms can take up to eight weeks to develop.
• Several patients have been medically evacuated to various countries for treatment, and passengers who disembarked earlier are being monitored by health authorities; the ship will return to Rotterdam with a skeleton crew after evacuation.