Ahmad Austin Jr.May 7th, 2026, 4:43 pm

A World Health Organization official on Thursday insisted that the recent outbreak of hantavirus will not result in another global pandemic.

The hantavirus has made headlines in recent days due to an outbreak that started on a cruise ship coming from South America. The ship first went to Antartica before making multiple stops at islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean. At the time of writing, the ship — MV Hondius — was anchored near Spain’s Canary Islands.

At least three people have died as a result of the outbreak, with several others having been evacuated from the MV Hondius. Additionally, officials have been working to trace the whereabouts of dozens of passengers who have already disembarked from the ship.

During Thursday’s WHO briefing, infectious disease epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove assured the public that it would not be another Covid-19 situation.

She said:

This is not coronavirus. This is a very different virus. We know this virus. Hantaviruses have been around for quite a while. There’s a lot of detail that we know. I’m gonna ask Anais to come in and say this, but I want to be unequivocal here. This is not SARS-CoV-2. This is not the start of a Covid pandemic. This is an outbreak that we see on a ship. There’s a confined area. We have five confirmed cases so far. We completely understand why these questions are coming, and we are trying to provide all of the information that we can. That’s why we’re having a press conference here to give accurate information, and we’re grateful for all of those out there who are asking these types of questions, but this is not the same situation we were in six years ago.

Van Kerhove added that most species of the hantavirus only spread through rodents and their droppings. The Andes virus — the species aboard the MV Hondius — is able to spread through close human-to-human contact.

The hantavirus was also in the news a year ago following the sudden deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa. It was later determined that Arakawa died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and Hackman died approximately a week later with “advanced” Alzheimer’s disease.

Watch above via C-SPAN

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