As repatriated Americans arrive in Nebraska and Atlanta for monitoring of hantavirus symptoms, health officials urge awareness of the virus’s early warning signs.
Eighteen American passengers from a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship sailing around South America are now under medical monitoring as health officials work to contain the rare outbreak that has already claimed three lives.
The evacuated passengers are part of 122 people removed from the ship, which was anchored in Spain’s Canary Islands. One American has tested mildly positive for the Andes hantavirus strain, while another has mild symptoms.
Other American passengers who have disembarked the ship are asymptomatic. But for people who do experience the first signs of the virus, the progression can be very deceptive, often mimicking a bad cold before turning severe.
And fears are mounting as an Illinois resident who was not on the cruise ship is feared to have contracted hantavirus. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) said it is investigating a potential hantavirus case in Winnebago County, and the CDC is conducting additional testing.
It is believed the man in Illinois contracted the virus by coming into contact with rodent droppings while cleaning a home, the IDPH said, which is the typical cause of hantavirus exposure.
The CDC cautioned that its test results for the man’s condition could take up to 10 days, and he will remain under strict observation.
Hantaviruses typically cause symptoms one to eight weeks after exposure to infected rodents, according to the CDC. The Andes virus identified in the cruise ship outbreak is the only known strain capable of causing human-to-human transmission.
A man in Illinois is feared to have contracted hantavirus despite not being on the MV Hondius cruise ship linked to a recent outbreak across the globe. Health officials in Tenerife, where the cruise ship docked, are pictured
Passengers evacuated from the cruise ship MV Hondius, which was affected by a hantavirus outbreak, walk with their belongings after disembarking at Eindhoven Air Base, Netherlands, May 12
Early Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) symptoms include fatigue, fever, and muscle aches—especially in the thighs, hips, back, and shoulders.
Four to ten days after early symptoms appear, late-stage symptoms emerge: coughing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness as the lungs fill with fluid. At this stage, the disease becomes life-threatening.
HPS can be deadly. Thirty-eight percent of people who develop respiratory symptoms may die from the disease.
As of May 2026, the CDC has activated a Level 3 emergency response — its lowest level — in response to the hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship.
This alert indicates that the situation requires coordinated public health monitoring and communication, but it does not signal a widespread threat to the general public.
The activation allows health agencies to share information, track cases among repatriated passengers, and ensure proper medical protocols are followed.
Three passengers aboard the MV Hondius have died so far: a Dutch couple and a German national.
Overall, 11 cases have been reported among cruise ship passengers, with nine confirmed by laboratory testing, according to the WHO.
A French passenger who was evacuated from the ship on May 10 is in very critical condition at a hospital in Paris.
Doctors initially diagnosed her with anxiety, according to the Spanish Health Minister Javier Padilla Bernáldez.
A British national hospitalized in Johannesburg, South Africa, is ‘clinically improving but still ill,’ a South African health ministry spokesperson told Reuters.
A passenger of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is pictured while leaving by military bus after disembarking in the port of Granadilla de Abona on Tenerife on Monday
The American passengers who tested positive for hantavirus and who have mild symptoms are being treated at the Atlanta facility.
Health officials emphasize that hantavirus remains a low risk to the general public. Former CDC Director Tom Frieden told CNN that the risk for anyone who did not have contact with someone on the cruise ship is ‘basically zero.’
Dockery said he first started feeling flu-like symptoms after being exposed to the virus.
Fourteen Spanish passengers are quarantining at a military hospital in Madrid.
Twenty-six people were flown to the Netherlands, with eight Dutch passengers returning home via medical transport to self-quarantine for six weeks.
One German, one Japanese, and 20 British passengers are at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside, England.
Five Australians and one New Zealander arrived in the Netherlands on May 12 and are expected to return home this week, where they will quarantine for 42 days.
There is no specific treatment for hantavirus, nor is there a vaccine.
Patients receive supportive care, including rest, hydration and symptom management.
HPS patients, meanwhile, may need intubation to help with their breathing.
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship into an ambulance at a port in Tenerife, Spain
Virologist Dr Jay Hooper previously told the Daily Mail that the virus ‘infects endothelial cells, which are the lining of your blood vessels.
‘They cause dysfunction so your blood vessels leak.’ He called the process ‘horrific.’
Health officials advise anyone who has had potential rodent exposure or close contact with a confirmed case, and develops fever, muscle aches or respiratory symptoms, to see a physician immediately and mention the exposure.
Early diagnosis is difficult because initial testing within 72 hours of symptom onset may not detect the virus.
State laboratories and the CDC can confirm a diagnosis through testing.
Dr Stephen Kornfeld, a retired oncologist, was praised after he jumped into action and helped care for sick passengers on the cruise ship when they were struck down with the virus.
Kornfeld told CNN that he has since tested positive for hantavirus, and is in isolation in a biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
He said he is currently symptomless, but cautioned that ‘it is still possible that the test represents an evolving disease, and I will get symptoms down the road. This is why I’m in the biocontainment unit.’
Kornfeld joined the cruise in Argentina last month, and previously told CNN he was expecting the trip of a lifetime sailing through the south Atlantic before the hantavirus outbreak.
He said the voyage fell into chaos when a Dutch couple contracted the hantavirus strain, which is believed to be from a landfill site in Argentina but the source remains under investigation.
Kornfeld said he ‘fell into the role of becoming the ship doctor’ after the onboard medic was also sickened by the virus, and said the doctor and two other people became seriously ill within a day of the outbreak.
He described their symptoms as ‘a lot of fever, fatigue, flushing, some gastrointestinal issues, some shortness of breath.’
‘The fear with hantavirus is you can go from seriously ill to critically ill very quickly,’ he said.
Kornfeld said he felt secure that he would not spread the virus across the US due to the quick actions of health officials.
He said he is isolating in a ‘very secure facility,’ so ‘if I am to get sick, there’s no way that virus is getting out of this building.’
Oregon doctor Stephen Kornfeld, who took on the role of the cruise ship doctor after its initial doctor fell ill with hantavirus, revealed that he has also tested positive for the deadly rat-borne virus
Over 140 passengers have been quarantining on cruise ship MV Hondius, pictured above in Cape Verde on May 4
A Texas father of three who survived the rare disease in 2005 is sharing his story.
Cam Dockery, 48, told the Daily Mail he contracted hantavirus on a work trip to New Mexico. Days later, he was hit with a crippling headache and severe fever.
‘I told my wife, “I think my brain is melting,”’ he recalled.
At the hospital, doctors put him on a ventilator and gave him just hours to live. His family came in to say their goodbyes.
A friend suggested testing for hantavirus. At the time, Dockery was believed to be only the 30th case in Texas.
Miraculously, he survived. Doctors told him he’d need lifelong dialysis, never work again, and couldn’t have more children. None of that happened.
‘I ended up having another son. He’s 17 now. I work every day,’ Dockery said.
Reflecting on the cruise outbreak, he said: ‘It makes me flash back. I automatically said a prayer for whoever’s involved.’