On May 3, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the death of three passengers on the MV Hondius, a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, from hantavirus. Measures were quickly taken to quarantine and keep under close surveillance those ill or possibly infected with the virus, which has a 38 percent lethality rate, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Contact tracing also began in an attempt to track down people who might have been infected. However, some social media users were quick to say that these health measures weren’t justified because, according to them, hantavirus can’t be spread from human to human. X users claimed that in the early 1990s, hantavirus wasn’t considered contagious. They’ve been sharing as “proof” a document labelled “Hantavirus Fact Sheet”, attributed to the San Juan Basin Health Department in Colorado in the United States. The Fact Sheet does say that the virus can’t be passed from person to person.
Social media post from May 16, 2026, circulating a document said to be a fact sheet about hantavirus distributed by the San Juan Basin Health Department in Colorado. However, this sheet likely refers to another form of hantavirus, which isn’t contagious, not the strain of the virus that was on the MV Hondius. Source: X
