Kamal Ghorui
MV Hondius visited world’s remotest island Tristan de Cunha and one passenger, a British national, is believed to be infected.
Amid worldwide scare over Hantavirus, it has now emerged that a passenger from the infected MV Hondius visited a school on the world’s remotest island, Tristan da Cunha, colloquially known as Tristan. It is a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean and is now suspected to be infected by the emerging rat virus. It is one of three constituent parts of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Tristan has just over 200 inhabitants who rely on ships traveling from South Africa forfood and fuel supplies and MV Hondius was one of themMV Hondius stopped off the coast of Tristan da Cunha mid-April, three days after the first passenger had died of hantavirus. Since there are no airstrips, the only way to reach the island is by sea, with ships departing from Cape Town roughly 10 times a year.The man who visited the island has been identified by the UK Health Security Agency as a new suspected case, who is believed to be still on the island.According to a local blog from Tristan, when the cruise visited the island, locals boarded the ship and several passengers came ashore. “Our final visit of the season was the MV Hondius, and even as we moved well into mid April, the island continued to deliver those perfect little weather windows. She arrived in morning of Tuesday 14th April 2026, and cruised off the north east of Tristan while immigration formalities were dealt with,” the Tristan blog said.A statement from the Tristan da Cunha Administrator Philip Kendall said the infections on the MV Hondius were “of serious concern to the island”.
Level 3 emergency in the US
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) activated its Emergency Operations Centers and has classified the hantavirus outbreak as “Level 3”, which is the lowest level of emergency activation and is typical for the situation. State health department officials in Texas, Arizona, Georgia, California and Virginia confirmed to The U.S. Sun on Thursday that they were monitoring people who had disembarked from the ship.Hantavirus is typically spread through contact with infected rodents but the WHO confirmed this is the strain, known as the Andes Virus, where transmission can happen between humans through close and prolonged contact.
