Hantavirus-infected patient hospitalised in Zurich as three more evacuated from cruise ship

When that happened they didn’t know it was hantavirus yet. From my understanding, he developed a flu-like illness, died onboard, and then his body and his wife disembarked at the next stop. They probably thought it was just run of the mill pneumonia, the man was 70. I imagine they started worrying it might be something more nefarious when the wife became critically ill at the airport (later dying) and another passenger died on board. Rare infectious diseases are sneaky motherfuckers. I feel horrible for all involved.

What about the talk of letting asymptomatic patients return to their home countries even though the incubation period for the Andes version can be 1-8 weeks!?

Letting them dock is the humane and rightful way to handle the issue professionally. Letting people take a commercial flight is crazy to be and unbelievable risk.

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She was escorting her husband's body after he died, at that time they didn't know that he had the virus, it wasn't until the 3rd death that they tested them.

I agree! Nobody should leave the ship for 4-6 weeks

Human stupidity can never be underestimated" I wish we had some sort of previous virus pandemic scenario, to help model future responses to unknown breakouts of unfamiliar diseases

As someone who works at the Zurich hospital: why am I reading about this first on listnook?

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How did he "return"?

Based on the local news I could find the following, except case 9. 1 - Dutch male infected and died on the ship, likely infected while bird watching in Argentina, taken from ship at St Helena 2 - Dutch female and wife of man 1 infected, left boat with deceased husband at St Helena, boarded flight to Johannesburg, later boarded KLM flight to return to The Netherlands, was too sick and was asked to leave, died shortly later 3 - German female crew member died on the ship 4 - British female fell sick, evacuated via St Helena to Johannesburg, in critical but stable condition in ICU in Johannesburg hospital 5 - British male crewmember of cruise ship fell ill, in critical but stable condition, evacuated to The Netherlands, being treated at LUMC in Leiden 6 - Dutch male crew member of the cruise ship who fell ill, evacuated to The Netherlands, and being treated at Radboud UMC in Nijmegen 7 - German female related to the other German who died of hantavirus but not symptomatic for now, has been evacuated to The Netherlands and now in isolation at a Düsseldorf hospital 8 - Swiss male who also left the cruise ship at St Helena in Zürich hospital with the virus 9 - Dutch female stewardess of KLM flight woman 2 is being tested for hanta, currently has mild symptoms, being treated at Amsterdam UMC So we have 2 flights women 2 was on, contact tracing is underway. There were rumours of someone from France who was on the same KLM flight tested positive as well, but that does not seem to be confirmed anywhere. Another problematic situation is that dozens of people deboarded the cruise ship at St Helena and went all over the world. Of this group only a Swiss male has been confirmed to have the virus. At first the story was that a male British physician of the cruise ship fell sick, this does not seem correct. Maybe the physician is one of the other sick crewmembers. At least the physician has been replaced by a medical specialist. Based on advice of the Dutch CDC The Netherlands has send 2 additional medical specialists from AMC and UMCU to stay on the ship.

https://news.sky.com/story/three-dead-as-virus-breaks-out-on-atlantic-cruise-ship-13503266?postid=11638466#liveblog-body It’s actually changing by the hour at the moment.  The doctor is recovering Multiple people made it off the ship The swiss  guy had a wife who is currently asymptomatic and in quarantine- both were hanging out in Switzerland for two weeks

Two evacuees https://today.rtl.lu/news/luxembourg/luxembourg-air-rescue-reports-confusing-situation-in-cruise-ship-evacuation-346545019

I thought the incubation period was longer than a week. This new case in the French person indicates less than a week.

Sorry, but how utterly selfish to still go the airport and attempt to board the plane

Yeah, but according to reports, a French national who wasn't on the ship had also tested positive for the virus... she was on the same flight as the wife who died.

Because people that usually get Andes virus aren’t taking international flights to airports across the world like has already happened with this.

> doesn't cause massive outbreaks in the countries of origin. That's nice, but what about outbreaks if we ship everyone infected to every country with Amazon express delivery

The good news is that you wont. The bad news is that it would be much worse.

Generally deadlier illnesses are (well in our time) less prone to epidemics (because they kill their host much more quickly and can't spread as fast). Still we have to be careful.

Boats don’t have ICUs and ventilators. It sounds like all infected people have been evacuated and are currently being treated in various hospitals in isolation rooms across several countries, which is the appropriate place for treatment and infection control. It’s the asymptomatic people on the cruise that haven’t been let off yet and they don’t quite know what to do with.

Doesn’t matter now does it, it’s in Switzerland and France already

The boat is the likely source of the infection. Everyone needed to be removed from it for their own safety.  I'm not a doctor but my assumption is the correct place to put everyone would be some sort of quarantine facility for a couple of weeks. Doesn't sound like that was done. That was the mistake. Getting people off the ship was the correct and proper thing to do.

That’s what I was thinking!

The hospital case was transferred from the ship. It didn't spread outside of the ship because there still isnt confirmed human-human transmission.

Poop cruise!

The difference with this one is that it’s a 40-50% mortality rate, and no specific antiviral treatment

He's been overthrown by 4 penguins

According to news reports, a French national who wasn't on the ship had tested positive for the virus, apparently this person was on the same flight as the woman who later collapsed in Johannesburg's airport and died.

> Soooo... From 1-10, how bad is it? I assume all that "its a new covid" right now is more or less panic, even if it is possible that there will be a bigger outbreak? We don't really know. If the French airline passenger really did catch it on the flight, its going to bump this from somewhat concerning, better keep an eye on it, to pretty alarming, monitor closely. Most likely, its not contagious enough to go pandemic, but we don't actually know. If we are really talking a 20-50% mortality rate, and its too contagious to contain, its not the new Covid, its Much worse. We would look back on the Covid response as a quaint practice run. Its not time to panic, yet, but keep a close eye on it...

The incubation period is so long (up to 8 weeks apparently) that people will have travelled long before anyone realises there's a problem.

Dude it's hantavirus, not some weird lab virus...

its a disease that has yet to have a 100% confirmed human to human transmission. every report of human to human transmission has been from biased journals. [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9574657/](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9574657/)

US, Israel and Russia would be ecstatic though! Just imagine - the world struggling again, countries too busy with lockdowns to keep an eye on wars etc etc. Dream scenario, actually.

Too late buddy there people infected on land

It's a known strain of the virus that we can treat. While human human transmission is possible, it's not super infectious outside of very close contact. It sounds scary, but it was likely a condition issue on the ship that caused the wider outbreak, then people being packed like sardines inside it. This isn't a public risk as much as a reminder that cruise ships are disease factories

The article you are citing is outdated if you are taking the current risk profile into account. The first patient on the ship showed symptoms five days after boarding, which means they think he contracted it outside of the ship which means all other patients, including the Doctor whotreated him, got it from human to human contact patient number three was a friend of the couple that died, which means she was in the same room as them, but she obviously did not share saliva so that’s enough

yep, let's run a world-wide experiment and see if the suspicions are right! /s

I get flashbacks. Remember November 2020 listnook. Where people believed everything coming out of China and even with people dying in italy. "It was just a bad flu. And kids get coronaviruses all the time" Also this strain is confirmed to be human to human and endemic in Argentina where the ship came from. Not saying that this gonna be a new pandemic but just falsely claiming there is no human to human transmission when even the head of who already confirmed it. Its just dumb

They are reporting that this one may actually be human to human: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/05/g-s1-120234/cruise-ship-with-hantavirus-may-have-seen-a-rare-occurrence-humans-infecting-humans