The deadly rat-borne virus that has killed three people on a cruise ship may have been brought onto the vessel by a birdwatching couple, according to officials.
Investigators said a Dutch couple, who later boarded the MV Hondius, visited a landfill site to snap birds in the city of Ushuaia, and may have been exposed to rodents carrying the lethal infection.
It comes as more than 20 Britons on board the doomed cruise ship will be repatriated as soon as possible – and face being quarantined for up to eight weeks.
The MV Hondius will arrive in the Canary Islands on Saturday after local authorities were overruled by Spain’s PM and ordered to allow the ship to dock so passengers and crew members could be checked by medics.
The vessel left Cape Verde this afternoon following the evacuation of a British doctor with a suspected case of the virus.
Canary Islands authorities tried to reject orders from Spain, fearing anyone on board the ship could bring the deadly virus onto their territory.
Their fears only grew when it emerged today that the disease had spread to Switzerland after a passenger – who left the cruise before the virus outbreak – developed symptoms upon arriving home and is now being treated in Zurich.
The man is being held in an isolation unit and may be quarantined for up to 45 days to ‘ensure that there is no risk to other patients,’ the head physician of the Zurich hospital told local news outlet 20 Minuten.
The disease has an incubation period of up to eight weeks – which, in theory, is how long the 21 British passengers face being held in quarantine if the UK government decides to copy Spain’s example.
Forensics are seen leaving an aircraft after a patient was evacuated at Schiphol-East. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, three medical evacuees from the cruise ship MV Hondius were on board
Passengers remain on board the stationary cruise ship MV Hondius, which is off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on Wednesday
The outbreak of the rare, rat-borne illness that has a 40 per cent mortality rate has left three people dead and several others seriously ill on the luxury cruise costing £10,000 per person.
But despite the outbreak having sparked international alarm, the World Health Organization has said the situation does not have similarities with the start of the Covid pandemic.
‘This is not the next Covid, but it is a serious infectious disease,’ WHO’s top epidemic expert Maria Van Kerkhove said. ‘Most people will never be exposed to this.’
It comes as a seriously ill British doctor was evacuated from the ship earlier on Wednesday.
Spanish health minister Monica Garcia confirmed he is now in a ‘stable’ condition, having previously been ‘critical’.
The evacuation means the ship can now continue on its three-day journey to the Canary Islands after Spanish authorities gave permission for the boat to dock.
Footage shows medics wearing hazmat suits boarding the luxury MV Hondius off the coast of Cape Verde in a desperate attempt to get three patients to specialist treatment in Europe.
Separate videos and images show the patients – also wearing personal protective equipment – lying on stretchers as they are wheeled into an ambulance.
As well as the 56-year-old Briton, a 41-year-old Dutchman and a 65-year-old German were also taken off the boat.
A flight previously scheduled to escort the British doctor – suffering from ‘acute respiratory symptoms’ – to the Canary Islands was cancelled without explanation.
While the Dutchman is also presenting with ‘acute symptoms’, the German is asymptomatic but is understood to have been a close contact of a person who died on the ship on May 2.
The head of the WHO, director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus, previously said the three patients were being evacuated to the Netherlands.
Two specialist doctors in infectious diseases headed from the Netherlands to the MV Hondius ship, its operator said on Wednesday.
‘Two infectious disease physicians, currently en route from the Netherlands, will embark m/v Hondius and remain with the vessel after its anticipated departure from Cape Verde,’ said Oceanwide Expeditions in a statement.
Prior to its departure this afternoon, the vessel had been stuck in the Atlantic off Cape Verde – an island nation off the coast of West Africa, where it was marooned for days, after health officials also previously refused to authorise its docking to protect ‘national public health’.
The ship – carrying a total of 146 people – is en route to the Granadilla port in Tenerife instead, where all passengers will be evacuated, despite fierce opposition from the president of the Canary Islands.
The outbreak of the rare, rat-borne illness that has a 40 per cent mortality rate has left three people dead and several others seriously ill
Spain’s Canary Islands expressed his opposition to allowing the cruise to dock on the archipelago, fearing a possible outbreak in the community
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, on Wednesday
On Wednesday, the president of the Canaries, Fernando Clavijo, told COPE radio station that he had requested an ‘urgent meeting’ with the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, saying that the decision to allow the cruise ship to dock on Canarian territory was not based on ‘any technical criteria’.
He added that there is ‘insufficient information to maintain a message of calm and guarantee the safety of the Canary Island population’.
Clavijo also criticised the Spanish government for its ‘institutional disloyalty’ and lack of professionalism for failing to keep him informed.
He also reproached the minister of health, Garcia, for not providing him with explanations about the criteria followed by the WHO.
‘I cannot allow it to enter the Canary Islands,’ he insisted.
But Garcia has insisted there is ‘no risk’ to the local population, emphasising that the evacuation effort will ‘avoid contact’ with Canary Island citizens.
Spanish passengers will be quarantined on a Madrid military base, while people from other countries will be repatriated if they show no symptoms.
Spain’s health ministry has previously said the ship was due to arrive at the Islands in ‘three to four days’, adding that upon arrival, ‘crew and passengers will be duly examined, cared for, and transferred to their respective countries.’
The health ministry said the WHO had explained that the Canary Islands were ‘the closest place with the necessary capabilities’ medically.
President of Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo
An ambulance boat carrying crew members wearing hazmat suits returns to the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on Tuesday after a visit to the cruise ship MV Hondius
Clavijo was insistent on not allowing the ship to dock there, claiming neither the citizens or government ‘can rest easy because the risk to the Canarian population is clearly very real’.
‘We do not know the condition of the passengers or how many have been infected,’ he said.
But Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said the country has both legal and ethical reasons to assist the ship, particularly due to the presence of 14 Spanish nationals on board.
‘We cannot forget that our own constitution establishes that authorities should help all of our citizens,’ he said.
The MV Hondius has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when the 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. The ship is anchored just off the island nation’s capital, Praia.
New footage from inside the vessel showed the ship’s decks mostly deserted, with only a few people wearing medical masks moving about.
Common spaces were empty as passengers were isolated in their cabins. At least five people with full protective gear, white overalls, boots and face masks were seen disembarking from the ship into a small vessel.
Another video shared on social media by Turkish influencer Ruhi Cenet shows the moment the vessel’s crew told passengers someone had died.
Footage shows a crew member saying: ‘One of our passengers sadly passed away last night.
‘I’m told by the doctor we’re not infectious. The ship is safe when it comes to that.’
But the video then cuts to Cenet telling the camera that ‘the situation was much worse than we were told,’ as he explains that a day after he left the ship, the wife of the person who had died also passed away.
‘After a third person died, it became clear that there was hantavirus on board.’
The Dutch operator Oceanwide Expeditions had indicated Tuesday that a solution was in sight, amid the plans to evacuate the two sick crew members to the Netherlands for ‘urgent medical care’, along with the third person who had been in close contact with a German passenger who died on Saturday.
An aerial view of an ambulance boat carrying crew members wearing hazmat suits as they return to port after approaching 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 Tuesday
Video grab shows the moment a crew member tells passengers someone died onboard the cruise
What are hantaviruses?
Hantaviruses are typically spread by rodents (file image)
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses which can cause serious illnesses and death.
They are typically spread by rodents and are not normally spread person-to-person.
The viruses can cause two syndromes – hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS).
Early symptoms of HPS include fatigue, fever and muscle aches.
Intensive headaches, back pain, nausea and blurred vision are symptoms of HFRS.
Minimising contact with rodents at home, in the workplace, or in a campsite can help reduce the risk of exposure to hantaviruses.
The cruise set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1, destined for Cape Verde, and counted 88 passengers and 59 crew members, with 23 nationalities onboard.
The WHO was trying to deduce how hantavirus had appeared on the ship, with the first person who died having developed symptoms on April 6.
The first stricken passenger, a 70-year-old Dutch man, died on April 11 as the ship steamed towards Tristan da Cunha.
His body remained on board until April 24, when it ‘was disembarked on St Helena, with his wife accompanying the repatriation,’ Oceanwide Expeditions said.
The man’s 69-year-old wife later felt sick on a flight from St Helena to South Africa, and she died on April 26 upon arrival at the emergency department of Johannesburg hospital.
The next day, a British passenger on the cruise became ‘seriously ill and was medically evacuated to South Africa,’ the company said.
South African authorities have confirmed that the 69-year-old, who is being treated in a Johannesburg hospital, tested positive for the hantavirus.
On May 2, another passenger of German nationality died on board the ship.
Health officials are now trying to trace at least 80 passengers who were on board the same two flights as the Dutch woman before she died.
The WHO has confirmed that the 69-year-old woman was flown from the island of Saint Helena to Johannesburg on April 25 on a plane operated by Airlink, carrying 82 passengers and six crew members.
‘A French national has in particular been identified among the passengers on a flight taken by one of the cases before they were hospitalised,’ a spokeswoman for France’s health ministry said.
The Frenchman is being monitored as a hantavirus ‘contact case’ after he travelled on the same commercial plane as the cruise ship passenger suffering from the respiratory disease.
The same woman was also ‘briefly’ on board a KLM flight from Johannesburg to the Netherlands, but was removed before take-off, the airline said on Wednesday.
‘Due to the passenger’s medical condition at the time, the crew decided not to allow the passenger to travel on the flight,’ which was flight KL592 from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25 at 11.15pm local time.
‘After the passenger was removed from the aircraft, the flight departed for the Netherlands,’ added KLM.
Dutch health authorities are contacting those who were aboard this flight ‘as a precaution,’ KLM said in its statement.
WHO has said three hantavirus cases have been laboratory confirmed.
The British man was medically evacuated from Britain’s Ascension Island to South Africa.
Laboratory testing in South Africa and Switzerland confirmed the cases from the ship were the Andes strain of the hantavirus, the only one known to pass between humans.
According to the UK Government’s hantavirus advice, symptoms typically appear between two and four weeks after exposure, but can range from two days to eight weeks, meaning illness may develop in other passengers in the coming days or weeks.
Around 40 per cent of cases result in death, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.
Early symptoms can include fatigue, fever, muscle aches and intense headaches.
They are not usually spread person-to-person and are typically only transferred via bodily fluids and close contact.
An aerial view of an ambulance boat carrying crew members wearing hazmat suits as they arrive at the port after approaching 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
The risk of contracting the illness can be reduced by minimising contact with rodents.
Meanwhile, the UK Government is putting ‘plans in place’ for the onward travel of Britons stuck aboard the cruise ship, the Prime Minister said.
In a post on X, Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘My thoughts are with those affected by the hantavirus outbreak onboard the MV Hondius.
‘We are working closely with international partners to support British nationals on board, and we’re putting plans in place for their safe onward travel.
‘The risk to the wider public remains very low – protecting the British people is our number one priority.’
