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Patient Zero in the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak has been identified as ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, whose passion for birds may have cost him his life. The 70-year-old man and his wife, Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, were on a five-month trip to South America. They first landed in Argentina on Nov. 27, and traveling through Chile, Uruguay and then back to Argentina in late March, where they went on a fateful birdwatching adventure. The couple — from Haulerwijk, a small village of 3,000 people in the Netherlands — were identified in obituaries published in their monthly village magazine. They co-authored a study...

The US government is moving to evacuate American passengers from a cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, with plans to transport them to a military base in Nebraska for quarantine and monitoring, federal health officials said Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the risk to the American public remains extremely low as officials move forward with a medical repatriation flight for passengers aboard the M/V Hondius. President Trump said earlier Friday that the situation appears to be under control, pointing to the virus being difficult to transmit. “We have very good people looking at it....

Four states are monitoring Americans who returned from a cruise ship where three passengers died during an outbreak of hantavirus. Virginia, Georgia, California, and Arizona all reported that residents of those states were on the MV Hondius, have returned home, but are not showing symptoms of the illness, according to Newsweek. The Virginia passenger “is currently in good health, not showing any signs of infection, and is under public health monitoring,” the state’s Department of Health said. “Generally speaking, we believe the risk to the general public to be low,” a representative of the department added. An Arizona Department of...

・Bloomberg reported on Friday that Moderna’s hantavirus research is “early-stage and ongoing” and began well before the cruise-ship cluster was identified.・No hantavirus vaccine is currently approved anywhere in the world, and human clinical trials for Moderna’s candidates have not yet begun.・Moderna’s vaccine sales have undergone a dramatic post-pandemic decline.Shares of Moderna Inc. (MRNA) closed 12% higher on Friday, clocking its best day in over two months, after the company confirmed it has been pursuing early-stage research into mRNA-based vaccines against hantaviruses.Moderna’s ongoing hantavirus efforts, reported by Bloomberg, coincide with heightened public attention on a rare outbreak linked to the Dutch-flagged...

Liberals are getting their masks back out ... or maybe they still have them on because Covid killed us all and this is the afterlife, but we can't be sure it's the afterlife, so they're still wearing them to be safe. Here's the new trend in Libtardville now that hantavirus is trending. [Warning: Three F-bombs 1 minute in] She literally admitted that she's been wearing her mask since 2020.

Despite a stream of alarmist headlines, the World Health Organization is emphasizing that the risk to the general public is very low. "This is not the start of a COVID pandemic," said Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic management at the WHO, speaking at a press conference on Thursday. "This is not COVID, this is not influenza. It spreads very, very differently." There are not many cases of human-to-human transmission, so medical professionals and scientists ... believe that hantavirus spreads primarily between people who are showing symptoms and in close contact. between people who are showing symptoms...

An update, for those of you who are Monitoring the Situation™. About 40 passengers from a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak disembarked on St. Helena, according to Dutch officials. Authorities did not confirm where they are now. https://t.co/LMn08mkjsG— The Associated Press (@AP) May 7, 2026More than two dozen passengers 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 company said Thursday 29 passengers left the vessel at St. Helena, while...

A hantavirus outbreak aboard a luxury cruise ship that has left three people dead is veering into the fringe. Online, a growing number of social media users are floating ivermectin as a possible treatment for the rare infectious disease, which can cause life-threatening heart and lung complications. Yes, you read that right — the antiparasitic drug used in livestock that became a pandemic-era flashpoint after being touted by media figures, politicians and even some doctors as a Covid cure is back in the spotlight. “Hantavirus is a RNA virus, and ivermectin should work against it,” Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a...

A leading expert has warned that masks might need to return to stem the deadly outbreak of Hantavirus. The world is currently watching as the outbreak originating from a luxury cruise ship in the South Atlantic has claimed three lives and left several others fighting for survival. Health officials have issued urgent “mask up” warnings for those in close contact with potential cases, as fears grow over the potential for human-to-human transmission of a strain typically found in South America, as a result. The crisis began aboard the Dutch-flagged polar expedition vessel MV Hondius, which departed Argentina last month. What...

An outbreak of hantavirus on board a cruise ship is not the start of a pandemic, the UN health agency has said. Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO), told a news briefing that it was not the same situation as six years ago with Covid-19, because hantavirus spreads through "close, intimate contact". Health authorities are racing to trace dozens of people who have recently disembarked from the Dutch vessel MV Hondius. On Thursday, the WHO said that overall, five of eight suspected cases of hantavirus had been confirmed. Three people have died, including...

International health officials are trying to track down dozens of passengers who left a cruise ship where a hantavirus outbreak killed three people and sickened several others. They disembarked after the first death, and some have reportedly returned to California. What started as an expedition cruise to Antarctica has now sparked global concerns, as there have been three deaths and five confirmed cases of the hantavirus linked to the MV Hondius ship. Health officials said passengers scattered across the globe before anyone realized the full scope of what was happening on board, and some of those passengers came back home...

An infection can rapidly progress and become life-threatening. Experts say it can start with symptoms including fever, chills, muscle aches and maybe a headache — much like the flu. Symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome usually show between one to six weeks, or more, after contact with an infected rodent. As the infection progresses, patients might experience tightness in the chest as the lungs fill with fluid. The other syndrome caused by hantavirus — known as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which can cause bleeding, high fever, and kidney failure — usually develops within a week or two after exposure. Death...

Rare human-to-human transmission of the hantavirus may have happened aboard a cruise ship of nearly 150 passengers, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday, after three passengers died and at least four others were left sickened.

SOUTH CARIBBEAN — A couple trapped on a hantavirus-infected cruise ship reportedly have declined to be rescued by a nearby Carnival cruise, saying they'd rather take their chances with hantavirus instead. "We appreciate the offer, we really do," cruise passenger Arthur Pendleton shouted down to rescue workers through a megaphone while wearing a hazmat suit. "But we've weighed our options. On one hand, we have fever, severe muscle aches, potential respiratory failure, and death. On the other hand, we have the deafening DJ deck, a hundred guys on board named Chaz, and the inevitable all-out violent brawl ending in death....

The deadly hantavirus outbreak has spread to Europe after a passenger who had already left the MV Hondius cruise ship tested positive once back home, authorities announced in an alarming update Wednesday. Swiss authorities said the man returned home last month following a trip to South America with his wife before testing positive for the virus, which can lie dormant for up to eight weeks. He went to a Zurich hospital for testing after the cruise operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, emailed recent passengers about the spreading virus that has killed three people and sickened at least five, the World Health Organization...

Distraught passengers onboard the stranded MV Hondius could face quarantine for up to eight weeks, a health expert warned Tuesday – as officials scrambled to contain a deadly hantavirus outbreak on the cruise liner. “I’m sure people are isolated or quarantined in their rooms or cabins, but unfortunately, that quarantine period can take up to eight weeks,” New Jersey-based emergency medicine physician Sampson Davis told The Post. “The virus usually has a quick onset, but it can linger up to about eight weeks before it has an impact.” Hantavirus is typically only spread through rodent droppings, but one rare strain,...

The suspected hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship, which has killed three people and sickened at least seven others, has two likely causes — and both are bad news for the 150 passengers on board, experts said. The more likely scenario would be passengers contracting the virus from the feces, urine or saliva of infected rats or mice. That’s the usual transmission vector, according to physician Zaid Fadul, a former Air Force flight surgeon — although the World Health Organization insisted Tuesday that no rodents have been found on the stranded liner. But there’s one strain of the...

The luxury MV Hondius cruise ship at the center of a deadly suspected hantavirus outbreak has been refused permission to dock in the West African island nation of Cape Verde, officials said Monday. Roughly 150 people are currently trapped on the Dutch cruise liner off the African coast after three passengers died and others became seriously sick with symptoms. The ship, which was on a weekslong polar cruise from Argentina to Antarctica, had requested help from local health authorities on Sunday following the latest death. So far, no one has yet been allowed to disembark, the company operating the cruise...

One case of Hantavirus has been confirmed, with five more suspected cases under investigation, it said. One British national is reportedly in intensive care. The outbreak was reported aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was travelling from Argentina to Cape Verde. Hantavirus infections are usually linked to environmental exposure, such as contact with urine or faeces from infected rodents, but in rare cases can spread between people, leading to severe respiratory illness. The MV Hondius is run by Dutch-based tour company Oceanwide Expeditions. According to an itinerary on the Oceanwide Expeditions website, MV Hondius departed from Ushuaia in Argentina...

For the past two years, New York and New Jersey infectious disease experts have been laser focused on prep and training for the upcoming FIFA World Cup games — with 1.2 million visitors from around the world set to watch 48 teams battle it out on the pitch. Across the US, those numbers skyrocket to 6-7 million. And with that massive influx of foreign visitors comes the threat of infectious — and sometimes deadly — diseases, including viral hemorrhagic fevers, RSV, tuberculosis, measles, varicella, hepatitis A, typhoid, malaria, SARS, hantavirus and even “high consequence” diseases with high mortality rates, like...