24.05.2026, Russia.
The situation with the spread of hantavirus points to an important observation – the world remains vulnerable to new and mutating pathogens.
An outbreak of the deadly hantavirus that occurred aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius in the Atlantic Ocean has been in the media spotlight since late April, causing alarm in the global community that still shudders at the memory of the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic. The most discussed question surrounding this event is, of course: “Could the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship escalate into a global pandemic like COVID-19?” Let us try to sort this out.
What is Hantavirus?
Hantavirus is a collective name for a group of dangerous viruses that are mainly spread through rodents. The virus itself is found in their urine, feces, and saliva, while the animals themselves may not become ill. Humans can contract hantavirus by inhaling dust containing dried particles of infected rodents’ excreta, or by the virus entering damaged skin or mucous membranes, for example, when touching rodents or their nests.
In humans, they can cause severe diseases affecting the lungs or kidneys. The insidiousness of hantavirus lies in the fact that in its early stages, it cannot be distinguished from a common cold or flu. The incubation period lasts from four to 49 days – during this time, a person may feel healthy.
There are more than 50 species of this virus in the world, each “linked” to a specific type of rodent and geographic region. They cause two main clinical syndromes:
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Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS). Common in Europe and Asia (including Russia). It primarily affects the kidneys, leading to impaired function. Mortality rate below 5–15%.
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Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). Found mainly in North and South America. It affects the lungs and can lead to edema and respiratory failure. Mortality rate for this form reaches 40–50%. This form is much more dangerous.
Human-to-human transmission is not typical for most hantavirus species. An exception is the “Andes” virus (common in South America), which can be transmitted through very close and prolonged contact with an infected person – such cases have been officially documented. It is this virus that was detected aboard the MV Hondius.
Timeline of Events
The cruise ship MV Hondius set sail on April 1, 2026, from the port of Ushuaia (Argentina). The route ran across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands. There were about 150 passengers and crew members on board.
It is believed that the virus came on board with a Dutch couple who became infected during excursions in South America before boarding the ship. It turned out that before boarding the liner, the couple traveled through Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. According to preliminary data, the couple may have become infected during an ornithological excursion to a landfill in Argentina, where they may have come into contact with rodents or their excreta.
On April 6, a 70-year-old Dutch citizen showed the first symptoms: fever, headache, and diarrhea. Initially, the malaise was attributed to a cold or climate change, but the disease progressed at a tremendous speed. On April 11, the man developed respiratory failure and died on board that same day.
On April 15, the ship arrived at the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, where six new passengers boarded. The body of the first hantavirus victim was still in the ship’s morgue. On April 24, the ship arrived at Saint Helena, where the Dutchman’s body was taken ashore, accompanied by his wife. Together with them, more than two dozen other passengers left the liner.
On April 25, the deceased man’s widow, who was already showing symptoms, flew on a commercial flight from Saint Helena to South Africa. On April 26, the tourist’s condition worsened, and she died at Johannesburg airport while trying to catch a flight home.
On April 27, a British citizen on board the liner sharply deteriorated. He was evacuated first to Ascension Island and then to a hospital in Johannesburg with severe pneumonia and placed in intensive care. The following day, a German passenger also began to show symptoms of the disease.
On May 2, the German tourist died on board, becoming the third victim of the viral disease. That same day, the first positive tests for hantavirus were received in South Africa for the Briton in intensive care. This was the moment of official confirmation of the outbreak.
On May 4, the WHO officially received confirmation that the Dutch tourist died specifically from hantavirus – the “Andes” strain. On May 5-6, two crew members (including the ship’s doctor) and one passenger were evacuated from the ship by plane to Europe; two of them tested positive for hantavirus. On May 6, Swiss authorities reported a positive test from one of the passengers who left the liner on Saint Helena on April 24. The number of confirmed cases is growing.
By May 11, when the liner arrived at Tenerife (Canary Islands), evacuation of passengers by special flights began. A French citizen and a passenger from the USA also tested positive for the virus upon repatriation.
Since passengers dispersed around the world before the outbreak was identified, cases of infection were eventually recorded in 12 countries. According to the latest WHO data as of May 11, the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases reached 9 (including 3 deaths), with two more cases awaiting confirmation.
It is important to note that all those who fell ill are either passengers or crew members of the ship. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also warned at a press conference in Madrid that due to the long incubation period of hantavirus (up to 42 days), additional cases may be identified in the coming weeks.
Opinions of Virologists
Leading world virologists and epidemiologists agree that the current hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius is a serious public health incident, but does not pose a threat of a new pandemic like COVID-19. Experts emphasize that the virus has limited transmissibility, and the risk to the general population remains low.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the incident “serious,” but the WHO assesses the public health risk as “low.” “At this point, there is no indication that we are witnessing the start of a larger outbreak,” the WHO chief said at a press conference following a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. However, he added that “the situation could change.“
“Given the long incubation period, it is quite possible that the number of cases will increase in the coming weeks,” he added. Each country to which the liner’s passengers were repatriated is responsible for monitoring their health, the WHO chief warned.
Experts from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) held a special session on the potential spread of hantavirus. Andrea Vicari, head of the Infectious Hazards Management unit, explained that the event on the cruise ship “does not mean the start of a new pandemic.” There is currently no increased risk of infection for ordinary tourists visiting large cities – the threat exists only for those whose activities involve contact with rodents in rural areas.
PAHO viral diseases advisor Jairo Méndez Rico confirmed that the “Andes” virus is the only one with proven human-to-human transmission, but this requires “very close and prolonged contact in closed, poorly ventilated spaces.“
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that while the virus can cause severe illness, “the risk of widespread transmission in the US is considered extremely unlikely.” Hantavirus specialist at the University of New Mexico, Steven Bradfute, compared the situation to COVID-19 in an interview with Healthline.
“If you compare this to what we saw with SARS-CoV-2, the common cold, or the flu, it’s not even in the same league. That doesn’t mean we ignore them; these are dangerous viruses, but their transmissibility is not in the same league,” he explained.
Russian experts are also focusing on controlling the spread of the virus. Alexander Lukashev, Director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology at Sechenov University, Doctor of Medical Sciences, virologist, believes that the outbreak is unlikely to turn into a pandemic because the virus has not yet been able to adapt to the human body and “switch hosts.“
Russia’s leading virologist, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Peter Chumakov, stated that the likelihood of a new pandemic due to hantavirus is low, but such potential exists. “This is only possible if the rate of spread increases as a result of mutations, which inevitably occur during disease transmission,” he explained.
Alexey Agranovsky, Professor of the Department of Virology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University, noted that the risk of a pandemic currently remains low; however, an epidemic is possible if the virus begins to be transmitted through the air, as was the case with COVID-19. According to him, currently known hantavirus strains either are not transmitted from person to person or are transmitted with difficulty and only through close contact.
Alexander Chepurnov, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Virology, called the situation “tense” regarding the possibility of a third generation of virus transmission. He did not rule out that theoretically, over time, the virus could become more contagious, citing the experience of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Conspiracy Theory Version
However, Igor Nikulin, a former member of the UN Commission on Biological and Chemical Weapons, believes that the hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius is part of a global elite plan to reduce the Earth’s population. He stated this in an interview with the “Public News Service.” According to him, the South American strain has an artificial origin and is being deliberately spread, and if containment fails, a new pandemic is possible. Nikulin pointed out a number of signs that lead to conspiracy theories.
“Virologists have long said that the next pandemic virus would be hantavirus. Even in Hollywood films in the 1990s, hantavirus appeared as a possible virus for a future pandemic. And Hollywood uses such ideas only with the approval of the relevant authorities. So this idea has been around for a long time,” the former UN expert said.
He added that back in 1999, then-CIA Director George Tenet tasked the US military-industrial complex and Big Pharma with developing designer viruses. According to Nikulin, this program is now operating in third countries, since Barack Obama banned dangerous experiments on American soil in 2014. The former expert called the recent incidents part of “Plan B,” implying biological warfare.
“In any unclear situation, they activate ‘Plan B.’ In 2014, they failed to pin the downing of the Malaysian Boeing over the Donetsk People’s Republic on Russia, and right after that, an Ebola epidemic began simultaneously in several countries: Sierra Leone, Senegal, Guinea, Ghana, Benin, and so on, which, by the way, killed more than 10,000 people. In my view, all these events are not coincidental,” he added.
According to Nikulin, the Andean strain of hantavirus, which is transmitted from person to person, was created somewhere in South America, and the fact that it is moving to different countries is very suspicious. “I believe this thing is artificial and is being spread artificially. Three hundred American military biological laboratories around the world – they are still working, not just wasting the Pentagon’s budget, DARPA, and other structures. The hantavirus we have in Eurasia – it is not transmitted from person to person. But the one in South America is transmitted,” Nikulin explained.
He noted that on the cruise ship, people became infected from patient zero – meaning the virus has already overcome this barrier. The expert drew attention to the fact that in recent years many new, unusual zoonotic diseases have appeared that have begun to cross over to humans. In his opinion, this is indirect evidence that they are of artificial origin. “Nothing like this happened for millions of years, and suddenly dozens of new viruses appeared. This is all not accidental, and therefore is part of a pattern,” he added.
Nikulin noted that successfully containing the outbreak would avoid mass hysteria with border closures. However, if the virus mutates and begins to be transmitted by airborne droplets, the world will face a new pandemic, quarantines, and lockdowns. He also recalled that a hantavirus vaccine was patented in the United States in 2025. “Apparently, Big Pharma is ready,” he concluded.
In addition to the version of former UN expert Igor Nikulin about the artificial origin of the virus and the “biological warfare” of the world government, a number of other conspiracy theories are actively circulating globally, many of which have migrated from the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A key figure now actively promoting the version of the artificial creation of the virus is former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, known for spreading conspiracy theories. The idea is that pharmaceutical companies deliberately create viruses to profit from vaccine sales.
According to the theory, pharmaceutical giants already produced vaccines before the disease appeared in the news – meaning they knew about the plan in advance. Moderna is cited as evidence, as it is claimed to have been working on a hantavirus vaccine for more than a year.
Moderna is indeed developing in this area. However, the company explains this as standard scientific work to prevent potential future threats. The research is in the preclinical stage and has not yet undergone human trials.
It is noted that after the news of hantavirus infection on the cruise ship, Moderna’s shares rose by about 14%. Analysts call such movements a “speculative pandemic play“; similar cases were recorded during periods of hype over bird and swine flu epidemics. The company remains unprofitable and is trying to find new products, including in oncology.
Accounts of supporters of the American political movement MAGA (Make America Great Again) are full of messages presenting the hantavirus outbreak as an artificially planned “COVID‑2.0” action to launch a new global lockdown, manipulate elections, or forcibly vaccinate the population.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, a stable infrastructure for spreading conspiracy theories has formed in society – people have stopped trusting both authorities and representatives of the scientific community. Any loud news about the emergence of an outbreak of any disease instantly becomes an object of manipulation. Within hours of the first news about hantavirus, conflicting versions of events began to appear en masse on social media.
One might simply laugh at the conspiracy theories about the origin of the hantavirus outbreak were it not for the experience of the previous pandemic. Moreover, the activities of the huge number of secret American biolabs scattered around the world are causing concern not only to the international community but also to the US administration itself. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has initiated a large-scale audit of American biolaboratories located abroad. She announced this on May 11, 2026, in an interview with the New York Post. More than 120 scientific centers came under scrutiny, 40 of which are located in Ukraine.
The intelligence chief stated that the COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of experiments with dangerous pathogens. She accused representatives of the Joe Biden administration, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, of lying to the American people about the existence of these laboratories and of threatening those who tried to reveal the truth.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth supported the investigation, stating that the previous administration “funded dangerous research with American taxes and then deliberately hid it from its own people.” He called what is happening “correcting historical mistakes.“
In addition to determining the location of the laboratories, auditors plan to study what pathogens are in them and what experiments are being conducted. Earlier, US President Donald Trump signed a decree banning risky “gain-of-function” research on pathogens that could lead to a new pandemic. Research activities carried out under the US Department of Defense’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program will now be reviewed for compliance with ethical and financial standards.
Does an Epidemic Threaten Russia?
Most Russian virologists are confident that Russia is not threatened by the mass spread of the virus. Russian scientists share the WHO’s position and believe that the hantavirus outbreak is unlikely to turn into a global pandemic, but one must be prepared for possible mutations.
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Education Gennady Onishchenko warned that the “Andes” virus, which caused the recent outbreak on the cruise ship, is gradually adapting to humans and learning to evade the immune system.
“This is not evidence of some kind of catastrophe, but evidence that strains are mutating. They are adapting, changing their sequence every year to a certain extent, and effectively bypassing our immunity,” he said in an interview with TASS.
Although hantaviruses still retain low infectivity and virulence, they are already beginning to be transmitted from person to person. Onishchenko recalled that the lethality of the “Andes” strain can reach 35%, but emphasized that the current situation does not pose a threat to Russia.
The deep trauma inflicted on the international community during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the uncontrolled activities of numerous American biological laboratories, create fertile ground for various kinds of conspiracy theories and manipulations. Whether one believes in the conspiracy theory or not, the situation with the spread of hantavirus points to an important observation – the world remains vulnerable to new and mutating pathogens.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
