{"id":335415,"date":"2026-05-15T23:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=335415"},"modified":"2026-05-15T23:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:15:15","slug":"why-was-the-norovirus-cruise-isolated-but-not-the-hantavirus-vessel-news-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/15\/why-was-the-norovirus-cruise-isolated-but-not-the-hantavirus-vessel-news-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Why was the norovirus cruise isolated but not the hantavirus vessel? | News World"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cruises have made news currently after the deadly hantavirus outbreak on MV Hondius (pictured) and norovirus on one other voyage (Picture: AFP\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Inside just weeks of each other, two cruise ships were anchored after viral outbreaks tore through their decks. <\/p>\n

The primary, MV Hondius, has seen not less than three people die of hantavirus within the six weeks\u00a0because it began a tour of the distant islands within the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 49 people showed symptoms of the highly infectious norovirus on board the Ambassador Cruise Line\u2019s Ambition vessel from the British Isles to Spain, while one passenger died. <\/p>\n

Social media users have questioned why those on the Hondius \u2013 including those sickened with the virus \u2013 have been flown home, while the Ambition was briefly isolated in Bordeaux.<\/p>\n

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Guests on the Ambition were asked to remain on board for around nine hours in Bordeaux, a scheduled stop on the 14-day voyage, while enhanced sanitation and inspection of samples by health officials, confirming viral gastroenteritis.<\/p>\n

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It was given an all-clear by the French authorities, and folks were allowed to disembark and go on excursions before the ship prepared to take off en path to Spain. <\/p>\n

So why were the 2 cruise ship outbreaks treated otherwise?<\/p>\n

Dr Katherine O\u2019Reilly,\u00a0medical director at the safety and medical services company, International SOS, has just a few ideas as to why. <\/p>\n

\u2018Within the cluster of hantavirus infections on board the ship, the diagnosis was confirmed after some passengers had disembarked,\u2019 she tells Metro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Passengers from MV Hondius were sprayed in Tenerife after the vessel docked there on Sunday (Picture: AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Authorities made the choice to disembark passengers from MV Hondius based on quite a lot of aspects, implementing public health measures, including monitoring and isolation of passengers post disembarkation.\u2019<\/p>\n

Dr O\u2019Reilly says that an easy reason why the hantavirus cruise wasn\u2019t put under lockdown was the character of hantavirus itself. <\/p>\n

The hantavirus is a rare family of viruses carried by rodents that, after it burrows deep in an individual\u2019s lungs, could cause flu-like symptoms, respiratory problems and a death rate for some strains of fifty%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Persons are sickened by inhaling particles from dried mouse droppings.<\/p>\n

Yet the virus struggles to make the jump from individual to individual. Even essentially the most successful hantavirus strain at human-to-human transmission, the Andes, which is on the centre of the outbreak, still only does so rarely. <\/p>\n

\u2018Because of this, some passengers disembarked before the situation was fully understood,\u2019 Dr O\u2019Reilly says.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Once hantavirus was confirmed, appropriate measures were implemented swiftly, including isolation of affected individuals and the initiation of international contact tracing.<\/p>\n

\u2018Managed disembarkation processes, including the usage of chartered transport, were put in place to scale back further exposure.\u2019<\/p>\n

Norovirus, meanwhile,\u00a0is fairly common and causes gastrointestinal symptoms, resembling diarrhoea and vomiting.<\/p>\n

It might probably, nevertheless, rapidly spread amongst people.<\/p>\n

Hantaviruses are also not typically related to cruise ships, which will be incubators for illnesses just like the norovirus.<\/p>\n

One other key factor was the virus\u2019s incubation period, which is how long it takes someone to develop symptoms after exposure.<\/p>\n

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The Ambassador Cruise Line\u2019s Ambition vessel was capable of proceed its voyage on a revised schedule after the transient isolation in Bordeaux (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Norovirus is very contagious with a brief incubation of 12 to 48 hours; it spreads rapidly,\u2019 Dr O\u2019Reilly says.<\/p>\n

\u2018Whereas hantavirus has an extended incubation period (as much as 8 weeks) and isn’t related to rapid widespread transmission.\u2019<\/p>\n

However it\u2019s not only their incubation periods which can be different \u2013 the hantavirus and norovirus are in several leagues to at least one one other. <\/p>\n

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the\u00a0World Health Organization, revealed on Wednesday why officials didn’t quarantine the MV Hondius. <\/p>\n

\u2018A number of the passengers were facing mental breakdown,\u2019 he said. \u2018They’ve the suitable to be treated with dignity and compassion.<\/p>\n

\u2018There have been some people all over the world calling for the passengers to be contained on the ship for the total quarantine period. <\/p>\n

\u2018Our view was that it could have been inhumane and unnecessary.\u2019<\/p>\n

Still, when you ask Dr O\u2019Reilly, as much because the hantavirus outbreak is \u2018unprecedented\u2019, most individuals don\u2019t have an excessive amount of to fret about. <\/p>\n

\u2018At present, the general risk to most people stays low,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

\u2018But there are still many unknowns, and the situation warrants close monitoring.\u2019<\/p>\n

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: British man hauled out of Italian bar when he was meant to be in quarantine for hantavirus<\/span><\/p>\n

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Cruises have made news currently after the deadly hantavirus outbreak on MV Hondius (pictured) and norovirus on one other voyage (Picture: AFP\/Getty Images) Inside just weeks of each other, two cruise ships were anchored after viral outbreaks tore through their decks. The primary, MV Hondius, has seen not less than three people die of hantavirus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":335416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[7160,27338,12077,395,25792,17476,813],"class_list":["post-335415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-cruise","tag-hantavirus","tag-isolated","tag-news","tag-norovirus","tag-vessel","tag-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335415"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335418,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335415\/revisions\/335418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}