Should you cancel your cruise after the hantavirus outbreak?

(NewsNation) — Cruise ships are once again in the spotlight after a rare hantavirus outbreak killed three people, though experts say the risk to travelers remains low.

Health officials have linked a cluster of Andes hantavirus cases to passengers aboard the MV Hondius, a Dutch cruise ship that was sailing in the South Atlantic.

The outbreak has revived memories of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, but experts say the Andes hantavirus poses little risk to cruise travelers.

“If you’re going on a plane or a cruise this summer, I would say your risk of getting hantavirus is very close to zero,” Dr. Jorge Salinas, medical director of infection prevention at Stanford Health Care, said this week.

That’s partly because, unlike COVID-19, hantavirus is not easily spread between humans — even the Andes strain. Instead, cases are typically linked to contact with infected rodents.

Between 1993 and 2023, just 890 laboratory-confirmed cases of hantavirus were reported in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

So far, there are no confirmed cases of the Andes hantavirus in the U.S. as a result of the recent outbreak, though the CDC is monitoring 41........

© The Hill