{"id":103,"date":"2026-05-23T08:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=103"},"modified":"2026-05-23T08:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:39:09","slug":"how-south-african-scientists-identified-hantavirus-on-a-cruise-ship-thousands-of-miles-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=103","title":{"rendered":"How South African scientists identified hantavirus on a cruise ship thousands of miles away"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

JOHANNESBURG (AP) \u2014 When South African<\/span> infectious disease specialist Lucille Blumberg checked her email on the morning of May 1, while the country was celebrating the Labor Day holiday, an urgent message caught her attention.<\/p>\n

Read more Ugandans rue link to Bundibugyo, the Ebola virus type named after a district of cocoa farmers<\/a><\/p>\n

A U.K.-based colleague had written about a passenger from a cruise ship sailing thousands of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean who had been evacuated and admitted to a Johannesburg hospital with suspected pneumonia. Others aboard the vessel were also sick. <\/p>\n

The colleague, who monitors diseases in remote British overseas territories in the South Atlantic Ocean, asked Blumberg to follow up on the passenger, who had been evacuated from the ship<\/span> in one of the territories, Ascension Island.<\/p>\n

Blumberg and other experts at South Africa\u2019s National Institute for Communicable Diseases were suddenly thrown into the race to identify the cause of an outbreak aboard the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cEven though it was a public holiday, we moved, we moved really fast,\u201d Blumberg told The Associated Press. \u201cIt was busy. There were many conversations. There were online discussions, and there was laboratory testing happening at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within 24 hours, they had determined that the man\u2019s illness was caused by hantavirus<\/span>, a rare rodent-borne virus.<\/p>\n

A process of elimination to identify the disease<\/h2>\n

The elderly British man had arrived at a private hospital in Johannesburg days earlier and was seriously ill, but health workers weren\u2019t sure of the underlying cause.<\/p>\n

By the time he was evacuated from the ship, two elderly Dutch passengers who had been on board the MV Hondius cruise liner<\/span> had already died, but there had been little alarm. Ascension Island health authorities had reported a cluster of illnesses on the ship that appeared to be pneumonia to the World Health Organization<\/span>.<\/p>\n

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At first, Blumberg and her colleagues thought it might be Legionella, a bacterium that causes a serious form of pneumonia, Legionnaires\u2019 disease<\/span>. Or maybe bird flu<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI called my infectious disease colleagues, and we had a caucus, and we discussed the usual ones,\u201d Blumberg said. \u201cLegionella is well described in outbreaks in hotels and on cruise ships, and influenza certainly is. These people had visited islands where avian influenza is well documented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tests on all those were negative. The experts also ran an extensive panel of tests for other respiratory diseases. Also, all negative.<\/p>\n

The team then began looking more closely at where the ship came<\/span> from \u2014 Argentina<\/span> \u2014 and the fact that passengers on board were avid bird watchers<\/span> and had reportedly been to parts of South America where there were birds, but also rodents.<\/p>\n

Read more Flotilla activists describe beatings, tasers and mistreatment by Israeli forces<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Collaboration with experts in South America and the US<\/h2>\n

That pushed the South African disease experts toward another theory: the rare, rodent-borne hantavirus<\/span> infection, which is found in parts of South America.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a well-described, not common, but it\u2019s a well-described virus in Chile and Argentina,\u201d Blumberg said. She added that their work was aided by collaboration with hantavirus experts from South America and the United States, facilitated by the WHO, the U.N. health agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can get onto a Zoom (call) online and ask your questions and get advice. This is not something every day. So that was quite extraordinary,\u201d Blumberg said.<\/p>\n

By then, it was Saturday morning. Blumberg called the head of the only laboratory in South Africa that can test for hantavirus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, we want to do hanta, and she said, \u2018yeah, I\u2019m coming.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The tests, carried out on the sick man\u2019s blood samples, came back positive for hantavirus that afternoon. The team did a second set of tests to be sure, Blumberg said.<\/p>\n

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Finally, there was a \u2018wow moment\u2019<\/h2>\n

Those positive tests, which also identified the Andes strain of hantavirus, allowed the WHO to inform the cruise ship what it was dealing with and announce an outbreak on board<\/span>. While hantavirus is not easily spread from person to person, the WHO says the Andes virus can be transmitted between people.<\/p>\n

The test results also led Blumberg to rush to collect blood samples from a Dutch woman \u2014 one of the first two cruise passengers to die \u2014 who had disembarked from the ship with her husband\u2019s body on the island of St. Helena and flown to South Africa, where she died.<\/p>\n

A posthumous hantavirus test on her was also positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit of a wow moment,\u201d Blumberg said. \u201cAnd at least once you know what you\u2019re dealing with, it\u2019s much easier to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

The British man who was the first confirmed case of hantavirus infection from the cruise ship is improving in hospital, South Africa\u2019s health ministry has said. Meanwhile, the ship has arrived<\/span> at the Dutch port of Rotterdam, where it was disinfected, and the remaining crew members disembarked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing outbreaks for 25 years. That\u2019s what we do. We do them every day,\u201d she said. \u201cI think the important thing was to respond immediately to a question that clearly was urgent and then to take it from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP coverage of the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/hantavirus<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Senators from both parties push Hegseth for action on Ukraine aid<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African infectious disease expert Lucille Blumberg was part of a team that identified a hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship. On May 1, Blumberg received an urgent email about a passenger evacuated to a Johannesburg hospital with suspected pneumonia. The ship, MV Hondius, had other sick passengers. Within 24 hours, Blumberg and her team confirmed the illness was hantavirus, a rare, rodent-borne virus. The World Health Organization then informed the ship. The British man who was the first confirmed case is improving. Three others have died. The ship has been disinfected in Rotterdam. Blumberg emphasized the importance of a quick response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"yoast_head":"\nHow South African scientists identified hantavirus on a cruise ship thousands of miles away - Top Moving Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=103\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How South African scientists identified hantavirus on a cruise ship thousands of miles away - Top Moving Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"South African infectious disease expert Lucille Blumberg was part of a team that identified a hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship. On May 1, Blumberg received an urgent email about a passenger evacuated to a Johannesburg hospital with suspected pneumonia. The ship, MV Hondius, had other sick passengers. Within 24 hours, Blumberg and her team confirmed the illness was hantavirus, a rare, rodent-borne virus. The World Health Organization then informed the ship. The British man who was the first confirmed case is improving. Three others have died. The ship has been disinfected in Rotterdam. 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