May 30, 2026
An ambulance boat position itself on the pilot door on the starboard side of the cruise ship MV Hondius, while stationary off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on May 5, 2026. Two seriously ill crew members on a cruise ship stricken by a deadly hantavirus outbreak will be evacuated via Cape Verde to the Netherlands, allowing the vessel to sail on to Spain’s Canary Islands, the ship operator said Tuesday. The MV Hondius has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when WHO was informed that the rare disease — usually spread from infected rodents typically through urine, droppings and saliva — was suspected of being behind the deaths of three of its passengers. As others fell ill, passengers and crew have been in isolation after Cape Verde authorities barred the ship from docking, and as health authorities scrambled to find a port that would take the Hondius. (Photo by AFP)
A cruise ship which sparked a global health alert over a deadly outbreak of hantavirus was on Saturday cleared to put to sea again after cleaning and disinfection.
“From a public health perspective, there are no longer any obstacles to putting the Hondius back to sea,” the public health agency in the Dutch port of Rotterdam said following a final inspection on Friday.
