WHO Warns Hantavirus Fight ‘Not Over Yet’ After Cruise Ship Evacuation

The news triggered more fear after a Dutch hospital quarantined 12 staff members in a preventive measure after blood and urine from a hantavirus patient were handled without observing strict protocols.

Another guest at that same birthday party has no interaction with the index patient except to say “hello” as they cross paths, but that person gets sick too.

A deadly outbreak linked to the Dutch-flagged luxury cruise ship MV Hondius has brought renewed attention to hantavirus after the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed three people dead and 11 reported cases connected to the vessel as of Wednesday.

But it wasn’t until some 20 years later, in 1978, that scientists linked the virus to a rodent near the Hantan river in South Korea, which gave hantavirus its name.