MV Hondius Cluster — Andes Virus
Andes orthohantavirus (ANDV) · MV Hondius (Ushuaia → Tenerife) → 8 countries · Since April 2026
CONTAINED
All 9 confirmed cases trace back to a single cruise ship. The virus is not spreading on its own.
+1 in the last 24 hours
Plus close contacts being traced in 6 more
Low risk · trend growing
Where the cases are
Confirmed cases and close contacts under surveillance, per country
| Country | Confirmed | Close contacts | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
🇬🇧United Kingdom | 2 | 30 | UKHSA |
🇳🇱Netherlands | 2 | 28 | RIVM |
🇿🇦South Africa | 1 | 88 | WHO DON #600 |
🇫🇷France | 1 | 22 | info.gouv.fr |
🇺🇸USA | 1 | 18 | CDC HAN #528 |
🇪🇸Spain | 1 | 14 | Sanidad |
🇨🇭Switzerland | 1 | — | WHO DON #600 |
| Total | 9 | 200 | 7 countries |
How cases are spreading
Every case placed in its transmission generation
Gen 0 — exposure on board · 3 deaths · 1 ICU
9 PCR-confirmed cases among the 147 people aboard the MV Hondius (86 passengers, 61 crew). Source of exposure: rodent contact during shore excursions in Patagonia, with possible person-to-person spread on board. First death at sea on 11 April. 90 additional passengers and crew remain in mandatory 42-day quarantine across NL, ES, GB, and US facilities.
Gen 1 — post-disembarkation flight & airport contacts
110 individuals with a known link to a confirmed case after the ship docked: 88 traced by South African authorities from the 25 April Airlink flight (Saint Helena → Johannesburg), and 22 close contacts in mandatory hospital quarantine in France from the connecting flights to Amsterdam. No Gen 1 case has tested positive at this update.
Pandemic Probability
Score based on Rₜ estimate, geographic reach, immune landscape, and containment signal
Outbreak appears contained. All confirmed cases trace to a single source event, the pathogen has limited community transmissibility, and contact tracing is intact. Pandemic risk remains low unless a generation-2 case is confirmed.
Estimated Rₜ ≈ 0.30
Methodology
What this score is. The probability that the outbreak escapes containment and becomes a self-sustaining epidemic in the global population. It is not a transmission-rate calculation.
How it is built. Anchored on a 15% prior — historically, ~5–10% of zoonotic spillover clusters lead to sustained spread, with uncertainty on top. Adjusted by: the pathogen's community R₀ (Andes virus ≈ 0.3 per Martinez et al. 2005), confirmation of Gen 2 transmission, independent introductions, untraced cases, CFR dampening (Lipsitch & Bergstrom 2004), active international response, and time elapsed in surveillance without escape.
What it deliberately does not do. Compute Rₜ from the doubling time of detected cases. For a contained cluster, that doubling reflects contact tracing finding already-infected people, not new transmission — using it would massively overstate risk. Doubling time only enters the score after Gen 2 transmission is confirmed.