Overview
- Cabo Verde, which denied the ship permission to dock on Monday, left two symptomatic people stuck on board near Praia.
- WHO reports one lab‑confirmed hantavirus case and five suspected cases, with three deaths, one patient in intensive care in Johannesburg, and two ill people still on the vessel.
- WHO and ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions are coordinating medical evacuations, repatriation plans, and genetic sequencing to identify the virus and guide care.
- Investigators are testing two main routes of exposure, either contact in endemic areas before embarkation or an infected rodent on board, with person‑to‑person spread considered rare for most strains.
- The first passenger died during the voyage with his body left on Saint Helena, his wife later died in South Africa after evacuation, and a British passenger remains in intensive care.