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More than 1,700 people are trapped aboard a cruise ship docked in France after a 90-year-old passenger died from suspected norovirus — just days after a separate virus killed three and sickened multiple others on a different cruise. Passengers and crew traveling on the Ambassador Cruise Line are being forced to remain on the vessel after arriving in Bordeaux on Tuesday, French authorities said. The quarantine comes after an elderly passenger died after roughly 50 people started showing symptoms of norovirus — a highly contagious stomach virus that causes diarrhea and vomiting. The ship, which is carrying mostly British and...

The hantavirus cruise continues to stay on everyone’s mind as many of us prepare for the possibility of experts enforcing mask mandates and quarantine protocols. I don’t think it will come to that, but those who disembarked from a cruise ship that left Argentina last April are being monitored for exposure to a rare strain of the pathogen, which can be transmitted from person to person. Hantavirus “Patient Zero” has been identified as Leo Schilperoord, a 70-year-old Dutch ornithologist who visited a landfill in Argentina, containing rodents potentially carrying the Andes virus strain. pic.twitter.com/6EHWy2RH5u— Interesting AF (@interesting_aIl) May 9, 2026Usually,...

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....

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...

Over 100 people were affected by a norovirus outbreak aboard the Caribbean Princess cruise, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released Thursday. According to the report, 102 of 3,116 passengers (3.3%) and 13 of 1,131 crew members (1.2%) were reported ill, with symptoms including diarrhea and vomiting. The outbreak was reported to the CDC on May 7. The cruise voyage took place from April 28 to May 11, according to the CDC. Princess Cruises said a limited number of individuals reported mild gastrointestinal illness during the voyage. "Princess Cruises can confirm that a limited number...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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.

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...