Hantavirus spread fears as plane passenger NOT on hondius ship infected after flight with patient

A man who was not on board the hantavirus-stricken cruise liner - but shared a flight with someone who was - is said to have contracted the deadly disease as health officials closely monitor him. The unnamed passenger, from France, is being monitored as a close contact case after reportedly developing signs of the rat-borne illness . He had boarded the same flight as an infected Dutch passenger who left the MV Hondius after having gastric symptoms, but did not know she was infected at the time. South African-based carrier Airlink said the flight from the island of Saint Helena to Johannesburg was carrying 82 passengers and six crew, with World Health Organisation officials working to track down those on board. Three people - a 70-year-old Dutch man, his 69-year-old wife, and a German woman - have so far died after the outbreak linked to the cruise ship. British ex-policeman Martin Anstee, 56, and two other cruise passengers have arrived in the Netherlands for special treatment, while another patient is being treated in Zurich, Switzerland. The Swiss Health ministry said the University Hospital Zurich was "prepared to deal with such cases" and insisted there is "currently no risk to the Swiss public". Meanwhile, health officials in Argentina - where the MV Hondius set sail a month ago - are investigating whether the country is the source of the outbreak. The nation's health ministry announced yesterday that it will carry out rodent trapping and analysis in Ushuaia, its port of depature. Argentina is consistently ranked by the World Health Organisation as having the highest rates of the rare, rodent-borne disease in Latin America. The Argentine Health Ministry on Tuesday reported 101 hantavirus infections since June 2025, roughly double the figures recorded over the same period the previous year. A hantavirus found in South America, called the Andes virus, can cause a severe and often fatal lung disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. The disease led to death in nearly a third of cases in the last year, Argentina’s Health Ministry said, up from an average rate of 15 in the five years before that. Hugo Pizzi, a prominent Argentine infectious disease specialist, said: "Argentina has become more tropical because of climate change, and that has brought disruptions, like dengue and yellow fever, but also new tropical plants that produce seeds for mice to proliferate. There is no doubt that as time goes by, the hantavirus is spreading more and more." Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings. While it can spread person-to-person, this is rare according to the WHO, whose top epidemic expert said the risk to the public is low. The Andes strain - confirmed among positive test samples on the MV Hondius - is only hantavirus known to spread from human to human. The virus can incubate for between one and eight weeks.