Hantavirus: Should You Cancel Your Cruise?

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Three people are dead. A British national is in intensive care in Johannesburg. Passengers from 23 countries are being tracked by health authorities across the globe. And the ship at the centre of it all — the MV Hondius — is still at sea, not expected to dock in Tenerife until Sunday. If you have a cruise booked in the coming weeks or months, it would be completely understandable to be looking at your booking right now and wondering whether it’s still a good idea. Here’s an honest look at what the risk actually is, who it applies to, and what the official guidance says.

What Has Actually Happened on the MV Hondius?

The MV Hondius is a Dutch expedition cruise ship that departed Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1 with around 150 passengers and crew on board. In mid-April, a passenger died on the ship. A second passenger — his wife — later died in a hospital in South Africa, and a third death followed on board. The illness has been identified as the Andes strain of hantavirus, which is found primarily in South America and is notable for being the only known hantavirus strain capable of spreading between people.

By May 8, the WHO had confirmed five cases with a total of eight suspected, and health authorities in more than a dozen countries — including the UK, US, Canada, Singapore, France and Switzerland — were actively tracing passengers who had dispersed around the world before the scale of the outbreak was fully understood.

For British nationals specifically: 19 British passengers and four British crew members were on board. Two have already been medically evacuated — one is in intensive care in Johannesburg, the other, 56-year-old Martin Anstee, has been flown to the Netherlands for specialist treatment. Two other British nationals who left the ship earlier at Saint Helena are already self-isolating at home. The remaining British nationals on board are expected to return via a government-chartered repatriation flight and will be required to self-isolate for 45 days.

So What Does the UK Government Actually Say?

The official position from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has been consistent throughout: the risk to the general public remains very low. The UKHSA has published a full update on the outbreak, which you can read at the official GOV.UK page here: UKHSA update on the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak. It is the clearest and most up-to-date official source for anyone in the UK who has concerns.

In that statement, Dr Meera Chand, Deputy Director for Epidemic and Emerging Infections at UKHSA, confirmed that full arrangements are being made to support, isolate and monitor all returning British nationals, and that contact tracing is actively underway for anyone who may have been in contact with confirmed cases. The UKHSA is also working with the Home Office and Border Force to trace individuals who may have been on the same flights as confirmed cases.

The WHO has echoed this messaging. Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed earlier this week that the organisation is not expecting the outbreak to become an epidemic, and that the risk of widespread transmission remains low given the specific conditions required for the Andes virus to spread.

Why the Andes Virus Is Not Like COVID

One of the reasons this story has generated so much anxiety is the image of a disease spreading on a ship and passengers then dispersing into dozens of countries before anyone fully understood what was happening. It draws comparisons to early 2020 — and those comparisons are understandable. But the Andes virus is not COVID, and the parallel only goes so far.

The Andes virus does not spread easily. It is not airborne in the way COVID or measles is. Person-to-person transmission has been documented, but it requires close, sustained physical contact — typically between household members or people sharing intimate space over a prolonged period. On the MV Hondius, the WHO confirmed that spread appears to have occurred among passengers in close contact with early cases, not throughout the wider ship population. The majority of those on board remain asymptomatic.

Hantavirus cannot be picked up from a surface or a passing interaction. As the UKHSA notes on GOV.UK, infections tend to occur in places where people and rodents coexist — most commonly in rural, agricultural settings. This is not a virus that travels quietly through a crowd.

Should You Cancel If You Have a Caribbean or Mediterranean Cruise Booked?

No — not on the basis of this outbreak. The MV Hondius is an expedition vessel operating in one of the most remote parts of the world. It is a fundamentally different type of holiday from a mainstream cruise on a large ship sailing established routes in Europe or the Caribbean, and applying the risk profile of one to the other just isn’t accurate.

The hantavirus outbreak on the Hondius appears to have originated with a passenger who was exposed on land in South America before boarding — not from conditions on the ship itself. There is no current evidence that mainstream cruise ships operating in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean or elsewhere face any elevated hantavirus risk because of this outbreak.

If your cruise departs from a standard European or Caribbean port on a well-regulated mainstream ship, the official guidance gives you no reason to cancel. Norovirus — which spreads far more easily and affects significantly more cruise passengers every single year — represents a statistically greater risk to your holiday than hantavirus does. Most people don’t cancel a cruise over norovirus.

What If You Have an Expedition Cruise Booked to South America?

This is where it is worth having a more careful conversation. If you are booked on an expedition cruise departing from Argentina, Chile or Uruguay — particularly one that involves shore excursions into remote rural or wilderness areas — it is completely reasonable to contact your operator and ask for a current risk assessment.

That doesn’t mean the trip is automatically unsafe. It means asking the right questions: What precautions is the operator taking? What is the ship’s medical evacuation protocol if a passenger becomes seriously ill at sea? Has the itinerary been reviewed in light of the current situation? A responsible expedition operator should have clear, confident answers to all of these.

If your trip is several months away, it is also sensible to monitor the situation over the coming weeks. The ship docks in Tenerife on Sunday, and the on-board investigations being carried out by WHO and ECDC epidemiologists should produce a much clearer picture of exactly how transmission occurred. That information will matter for assessing future risk on similar voyages.

What Should You Do Before Any Cruise Right Now?

Regardless of your destination, a few practical steps are worth taking before you sail.

Check the FCDO travel advice for every country your itinerary touches — especially if you are stopping at South American ports. This is updated regularly and is the most reliable guide to current government thinking on safety at any given destination.

Make sure your travel insurance covers medical evacuation. This is standard advice for any cruise holiday, but the Hondius situation has made vividly clear how logistically complex and costly evacuation from a remote location can be — and how limited a ship’s medical facilities are when serious illness strikes.

Find out how illness is reported and managed on your specific ship before you board. If you do feel unwell during a cruise, tell the medical team promptly rather than waiting to see if it passes. Early reporting is better for you and better for every other passenger on board.

If you have been on any cruise that departed from or called at South American ports since early April 2026, and you develop flu-like symptoms over the coming weeks — particularly a sudden fever, muscle aches and stomach symptoms — contact your GP or call 111. Mention your travel history clearly, and do not turn up at a GP surgery or A&E without calling ahead first.

The Bottom Line

The MV Hondius outbreak is a serious situation and a genuinely unusual event. It deserves the attention and concern it has received. But the official position from both the UKHSA and the WHO is the same: this is not a reason for the general public to panic, and it is not grounds to cancel a mainstream cruise holiday.

What it actually is, is a timely reminder that travel — all travel, not just cruising — involves health considerations that are worth thinking about before you go. Knowing the protocols on your ship, making sure your insurance covers the worst-case scenario, and paying attention to official guidance are all good habits regardless of what’s in the headlines.

For the latest official UK guidance on the outbreak, advice for anyone connected to the MV Hondius, and information on what the government is doing to protect returning British nationals, the UKHSA’s page on GOV.UK is the place to go.