Two more people linked to the cruise ship Hondius were reported to have fallen ill in Switzerland and France, according to Swiss and European media reports Wednesday. In the Swiss case, the infection and its links to the cruise ship were confirmed by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. On the reported French case, a WHO spokesperson said that the agency had “reached out to French authorities to verify”.

Meanwhile, one passenger and two crew members with suspected hantavirus cases were evacuated from the ship Hondius and flown to the Netherlands to receive medical care,  the World Health Organization also confirmed.

The ship at the centre of the hantavirus outbreak is currently moored off the coast of the West African Archipelago of Cabo Verde. It was supposed to sail to the Canary Islands and dock there on Saturday, where Spanish authorities will assess the remaining passengers, disinfect the ship and conduct a full epidemiological investigation, according to Maria van Kerkhove, director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, who spoke at a media briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.

Canary Island authorities, however, have balked at receiving the vessel, while Spanish government officials have said that the plan is in line with a WHO request and “international humanitarian principles.”

Three suspected #hantavirus case patients have just been evacuated from the ship and are on their way to receive medical care in the Netherlands in coordination with @WHO, the ship’s operator and national authorities from Cabo Verde, the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands.… pic.twitter.com/olQBk6tdGk

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 6, 2026

Wednesday’s evacuated crew members both were suffering from “acute respiratory symptoms, one mild and one severe”. The other evacuee was German passenger who had been in close company with a passenger who died on the ship on 2 May, according to cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions. All of those remaining on board the ship, which was carrying almost 150 passengers when it first set sail from Argentina on 1 April, have been asked to remain in the cabins as a precaution until the ship reaches a port of call.

With the report of the Swiss case, eight cruise passengers or former passengers are suspected of having contracted the virus. But laboratory tests have only confirmed it in two of the cases, and one case appears asymptomatic, said Van Kerkhove at Tuesday’s briefing. Three passengers have died, two while on board, including a 69-year-old Dutch man on 11 April and a German citizen on 2 May. The Dutch man’s wife, also died shortly after being medically evacuated to South Africa. Another passenger who was medically evacuated to South Africa remains in intensive care. 

“Illness onset occurred between 6 and 28 April 2026 and was characterised by fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, rapid progression to pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and shock.,” according to the WHO.

There is no specific treatment, and a high case fatality rate of up to 50% for the hantavirus found in the Americas, but “early supportive medical care is key to improving survival”, according to WHO.

A Swiss and French national each become ill in two more cases linked to the cruise

The WHO has deemed the global threat posed by the outbreak to be “low”, based on the historically low incidence of human-to-human infection from the virus.

However, on Wednesday a French national was reportedly hospitalized in Europe with a suspected case of the virus after taking a flight with the Dutch woman evacuated from the ship to South Africa, and who later died.  The French woman had not been aboard the Hondius cruise ship at all.

In Switzerland, another former Hondius cruise passenger was being treated for the hantavirus at Zurich University Hospital after having spent some time on the cruise ship in April, according to the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, which stated on Wednesday, “one person with a hantavirus infection is currently being treated at the University Hospital Zurich (USZ). The patient is male and returned to Switzerland after travelling on the cruise ship on which there were a number of hantavirus cases.”

The man’s wife has not shown symptoms, but is self-isolating, while Swiss authorities are tracing the couple’s contacts, the FOPH stated.

People usually contract hantaviruses from exposure to the urine, droppings or saliva of infected rats. Human-to-human transmission is “uncommon”.

Such transmission has, however, been documented in Argentina and Chile involving the Andes virus, a species of the hantavirus. The “working assumption” is that the Andes virus was responsible for the outbreak aboard the ship, Van Kerhkove said.  But health authorities will only know for sure after the virus is sequenced from the British patient being treated in South Africa. T

Even the Andes virus variant, however, will typically only spread between humans in “very close physical contact”, Van Kerhkove said.  “When you have an enclosed settings, you have people that are spending a lot of time together. These types of things can happen.” 

Andes virus, with some human-to-human transmission endemic to Argentina

The Andes virus is endemic to Argentina, where the cruise ship began its voyage across the South Atlantic on 1 April. It is thus possible that the index passenger was infected before he embarked in Ushuaia, Argentina, rather than on the ship, officials say.  The ship traveled to Antartica and then onto a number of islands and archipelegos off the coast of Africa, along a well-trod Southern Atlantic cruise route featuring spectacular landscapes of both glacial mountains and tropics. 

The first person to die was the Dutch 69-year-old male passenger “who suddenly became ill in the ship en route from Ushuaia to St Helena Island, and presented with fever, headache, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea”, according to the South African Department of Health. He died on arrival at St Helena. His wife then flew to South Africa from St Helena Island, but collapsed at Johannesburg airport and later died at a nearby health facility.

“The initial case and his wife joined the boat in Argentina, and with the timing of the incubation period of hantavirus, which can be anywhere from one to six weeks, our assumption is that they were infected off the ship,” said Van Kerkhove.

A third patient, a British national, became acutely ill while the ship was travelling from St Helena to Ascension Island, and was flown to a private health facility in South Africa. He has been confirmed with hantavirus and is in a “critical condition in isolation”.

Hantavirus infection was confirmed in two of the patients by South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NiCD). Further tests, including sequencing of the virus, is being conducted by NiCD, as well as well as testing the two symptomatic patients on board with the support from Institut Pasteur of Dakar in Senegal. 

President of Canary Islands opposes Spanish Government order to dock the ship

The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, told reporters in Tenerife that he opposed the Spanish government’s plan to let the ship dock there, Sky News reported.

Clavijo, who belongs to the main opposition party in Spain, said the cruise ship has requested to dock at Tenerife on Saturday.

“The World Health Organisation has explained that Cape Verde is unable to carry out this operation,” the Spanish Health Ministry said in response. “The Canary Islands are the ​closest location with the necessary capabilities. Spain has a moral and legal obligation to assist these people, among whom are also several Spanish citizens.”

Van Kerkhove described the collaboration with member states on the emergency as “excellent”.

The WHO was informed of “a cluster of severe acute respiratory illness” aboard the ship by the UK on 2 May, in terms of the International Health Regulations, she added.

The timeline issued by Oceanwide Expeditions is as follows:

• On 11 April, the 69-year old Dutch passenger died on board. The cause of death could not be determined at the time.
• On 24 April, his body was disembarked on St Helena, with his wife accompanying the repatriation.
• On 27 April, Oceanwide Expeditions was informed that the wife, also a Dutch national, had become unwell during the flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, and had died shortly afterwards in a South African hospital. On 4 May,  a variant of hantavirus was confirmed in the woman.
• On 27 April, another British passenger became seriously ill and was medically evacuated to South Africa. This person is currently being treated in the intensive care unit in Johannesburg and is in a critical but stable condition. A variant of hantavirus has also been identified in this patient.
• On 2 May, another passenger, of German nationality, also died on board the ship. The cause has not yet been definitively established.

–Updated on 6 May with new developments, reported by Elaine Ruth Fletcher.

Image Credits: Franklin Braeckman/Oceanwide Expeditions , El Pais/OpenStreetMap, Sky News .