Two Americans and a French passenger showed symptoms of hantavirus on repatriation flights on May 10, 2026, as authorities moved to evacuate people from the cruise ship MV Hondius after an outbreak that has left at least three people dead. One American citizen began showing symptoms on a flight, while another American tested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus without showing symptoms. The French passenger was placed in strict isolation and will be tested.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the two Americans were travelling in the plane's biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution. French officials said the passenger on that flight began showing symptoms during a repatriation flight and was immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice. The new cases add urgency to an operation that had already put health officials on alert after at least nine confirmed or suspected infections linked to the ship.
The MV Hondius was carrying nearly 150 people from more than 15 countries, including 17 Americans and about 60 crew members, when the outbreak forced action. Earlier this week, the ship set sail from Cape Verde to Granadilla after Spain agreed to take it. By Sunday morning, passengers began disembarking after the ship docked in Spain's Canary Islands, with Spanish nationals leaving first before boarding a plane for Madrid. French and British passengers have also been evacuated.
Three people have died in the outbreak, including a Dutch couple and a German woman. Passengers and crew members had no contact with the local population on Tenerife before they were taken to evacuation flights. After disembarkation, a skeleton crew will take supplies and then begin the journey to Rotterdam, Netherlands, which is expected to take about five days. The body of a passenger who died on board will remain on the ship, which will be disinfected once it arrives in Rotterdam.
Hantavirus is typically transmitted by rodents, but the cases tied to the Hondius involve the rare Andes strain, which can spread from person to person. Health officials have said the risk to the general public remains low, even as the outbreak has widened across multiple flights and evacuation routes. The operation in Tenerife is being supervised by Spain's health and interior ministers and by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
For now, the outbreak has moved beyond the ship itself and into the machinery of evacuation, where every transfer adds another chance to contain what investigators are still trying to pin down.
