An aerial picture of the cruise ship MV Hondius stationary off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on 4 May. Strict precautionary measures, including isolation, are in place on the ship where a suspected outbreak of hantavirus has killed three people.

• The WHO is trying to trace people who were on a flight between Saint Helena and Johannesburg, taken by a cruise ship passenger who died of hantavirus.
• Seven cases have now been identified, including three deaths.
• The WHO stressed that it assessed the risk to the global population from the outbreak as “low”.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday that it was trying to trace people who were on a flight between the island of Saint Helena and Johannesburg, taken by a cruise ship passenger who died of hantavirus.

The Dutch woman, whose husband also died of the virus on the ship now stuck off Cape Verde, disembarked in Saint Helena with “gastrointestinal symptoms” on 24 April. Her condition “deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg” and she died on 26 April, the WHO said.

“Contact tracing for passengers on the flight has been initiated.”

The organisation said it suspected that the virus may have spread between people on the cruise ship MV Hondius.

“We do believe that there may be some human-to-human transmission that is happening among the really close contacts,” the WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director Maria Van Kerkhove told reporters. She added that there was a suspicion the person first sickened was infected before boarding the cruise ship currently anchored off Cape Verde.

The WHO also said on Tuesday that Spain would “welcome” the ship, enabling a probe and assessment of the risk to the remaining passengers.

The United Nations health agency added in a statement: “As of 4 May 2026, seven cases (two laboratory confirmed cases of hantavirus and five suspected cases) have been identified, including three deaths, one critically ill patient and three individuals reporting mild symptoms.”

READ | Three die, one in Joburg hospital after ‘respiratory illness’ outbreak on Atlantic cruise ship

During the cruise, which was travelling from Ushuaia in Argentina to Cape Verde off west Africa, “illness onset occurred between 6 and 28 April 2026”, WHO said.

It was “characterised by fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, rapid progression to pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and shock,” it said, adding that “further investigations are ongoing”.

WHO stressed that it assessed the risk to the global population from the outbreak as “low”, and that it would continue to monitor the situation.

Passengers from Britain, Spain and the United States, as well as crew from the Philippines, were among 23 nationalities aboard the MV Hondius, which WHO said was currently carrying 147 people.

A British passenger was in intensive care in Johannesburg and two crew – one British and the other Dutch – required “urgent medical care”, the ship’s operator Oceanwide Expeditions said in a statement.

Three of the identified cases were no longer on the ship, and four remained on board, including a German who died on Saturday.

The first deaths among the passengers were a Dutch couple – a husband who died on board on 11 April and his wife, who died after she disembarked from the vessel in St Helena to accompany his body, the operator said.

READ | EXPLAINER: What is hantavirus, the disease that has killed 3 cruise ship passengers?

WHO said that the wife who left the ship with her dead husband on 24 April had been suffering from “gastrointestinal symptoms”.

“She subsequently deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, on 25 April,” it said, adding that “she later died upon arrival at the emergency department on 26 April”.

“On 4 May, the case was subsequently confirmed by PCR with hantavirus infection,” it said, stressing that “contact tracing for passengers on the flight has been initiated”.

Human hantavirus infection is a rare but severe and potentially deadly disease that is primarily acquired through contact with the urine, faeces, or saliva of infected rodents, WHO said.

However, human-to-human transmission has also been reported in previous outbreaks.