Passenger dies in SA as rare virus linked to international cruise ship outbreak

South Africa has been drawn into a multi-country public health response after a cluster of illnesses and three deaths linked to an international cruise ship, with one passenger dying locally and another in critical condition in a Sandton hospital, the department of health confirmed. In a statement issued on Monday, the department said it had been informed by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases of cases emerging from the MV Hondius, a vessel carrying about 150 tourists travelling from southern Argentina to the Canary Islands. The outbreak was initially treated as a severe acute respiratory infection as passengers fell ill over several weeks while the ship travelled through remote Atlantic routes.

The first patient, a 70-year-old Dutch national, became ill onboard and died on arrival at St Helena Island. His symptoms included fever, headache, abdominal pain and diarrhoea. His spouse, a 69-year-old woman, later collapsed at OR Tambo International Airport while in transit and died at a health facility in Kempton Park.

Laboratory results in her case are outstanding. A third patient, a British national, deteriorated while the ship was travelling between St Helena and Ascension Island and was medically evacuated to South Africa. He is in a private hospital in Sandton, where tests have confirmed hantavirus, arare but potentially fatal infectiontypically transmitted through contact with rodent excreta.

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The department said that while only two of the affected passengers had entered South Africa, authorities were conducting contact tracing in Gauteng to identify and monitor individuals who might have been exposed. It added that there was no immediate cause for public alarm. The confirmation of hantavirus in a patient treated in Johannesburg complicates what was Unlike common cruise ship outbreaks, which are typically driven by person to person transmission, hantavirus is generally linked to environmental exposure.

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