WHO Confirms Seven Andes Hantavirus Cases From MV Hondius, France Reports Death

The Andes hantavirus outbreak tied to the MV Hondius has prompted the World Health Organization to confirm seven cases among passengers, while updating its overall tally of reported cases to nine, after France reported that a French passenger evacuated from the ship tested positive.

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The WHO spokesperson said by email that a further two of the nine cases are suspected, including the person believed to have been the first infected who died before he could be tested, and the WHO said in total three people have died in the outbreak.

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In California, state public health officer Dr. Erica Pan said a fourth California resident may have been exposed while on a plane in South Africa, sitting near an ill person who was later confirmed to have hantavirus.

Pan said the California resident returned home over the weekend to Sacramento County, has no symptoms, and is being monitored while advised to limit activities outside the home for a 42-day incubation period.

The Vox account of the outbreak framed the situation as a test of whether health leaders learned from Covid, quoting Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at UCLA, on how underreacting or overreacting can affect containment and public trust.

France’s health response described a strict isolation protocol and said about twenty French nationals are “contacts” of passengers infected with the Andes virus, with a French woman in intensive care at Hôpital Bichat in Paris.

The Journal des Femmes Santé quoted Health Minister Stéphanie Rist as saying “several children” were among the close contacts, and it added that Xavier Lescure said three teenagers from the same family were hospitalized at Pitié-Salpêtrière.

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The same account said the minister reassured, “I would like to be very clear: there is currently no transmission of the virus,” and it reported that Emmanuel Macron assured on Tuesday that the situation was “under control” in France.

In California, Dr. Erica Pan said the risk to the public is extremely low, and she described the aircraft exposure as involving someone sitting within a two-seat radius, a row behind or a row ahead of the ill person, for at least 15 minutes.

The Vox piece also highlighted the tension between acting on uncertainty and maintaining trust, including Anne Rimoin’s warning that overreacting without clear evidence can exhaust resources and make compliance harder.

While the MV Hondius outbreak was being tracked, Ouest-France and Le Figaro described a separate cruise-ship health incident in Bordeaux involving the Ambition cruise ship, where authorities reported a suspected gastroenteritis outbreak and confined 1,700 people.

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Le Figaro said the prefecture and regional health agency explained in a joint statement that “the results of the epidemiological analysis of the biological samples taken from the ship's patients confirm that this is indeed a viral gastroenteritis,” leading to a partial lifting of the disembarkation ban for those without symptoms.

Le Figaro reported that among the 1,233 passengers, about fifty “have been affected by symptoms compatible with an acute digestive infection,” and it said they were isolated in their cabins while the ship had 514 crew members of Indian nationality on board.

The same Le Figaro account said authorities announced that “there is no link between this death and the situation on board,” after a 92-year-old person died aboard from a cardiac arrest during the Brest stop.

In the Vox narrative, the hantavirus outbreak’s uncertainty was tied to the possibility that it could spread beyond “close contact,” with an open letter urging the World Health Organization to adopt a precaution-first approach if there is “any chance” it could be airborne or transmit more easily.