MADRID — Health authorities across four continents Thursday were tracking down and monitoring passengers who disembarked a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship before its deadly outbreak was detected, and trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.

Israel’s Health Ministry, meanwhile, said there was no patient in Israel with the hantavirus, according to Hebrew media reports.

In Argentina, a team of investigators has yet to leave for the southern town where they suspect the outbreak originated, officials from the country’s Health Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday. The Argentine investigators suspect a Dutch couple may have contracted the virus while on a bird-watching trip before they boarded the cruise ship.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, the ship’s operator and Dutch officials said Thursday.

Three passengers have died in the outbreak — a Dutch couple and a German national — and several others are sick. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Symptoms include fever, gastrointestinal symptoms and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

None of the remaining passengers or crew on the ship are currently symptomatic, the Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions cruise ship company said Thursday.

The World Health Organization says the risk to the wider public is low. Hantavirus is usually spread by the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people.

“We believe this will be a limited outbreak if the public health measures are implemented and solidarity is shown across all countries,” said Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud, the WHO’s alert and response director, on Thursday.

‘Probably not the next pandemic,’ says Israeli doctor

There was an unconfirmed report of a patient who returned to Israel from Europe with hantavirus in December 2025.

However, Dr. Daniel Grupel of the clinical microbiology and infectious diseases department at Hadassah Hospital said he isn’t aware of any recent hantavirus cases in Israel.

He also said that the virus on the cruise ship, MV Hondius, is New World Hantavirus, which can be transmitted between humans.

“It is a different virus altogether and more severe than the disease found in Europe,” he said, as that virus is passed from rodents to humans.

“I think this is a really bad situation for the people on the........

© The Times of Israel