Key takeaways from WHO briefing on hantavirus cruise ship outbreak

The MV Hondius, the cruise ship that has garnered global attention because of an apparent outbreak of person-to-person spread hantavirus infections, is on the move. At the request of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, Spain has agreed to let the ship dock off Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. The ship is expected to arrive on Sunday. This outbreak — the first time hantavirus has been suspected of transmitting on a cruise ship — is an evolving situation. It’s also one that is going to take weeks to resolve, because of the long incubation period of hantaviruses. And it could be months before scientists piece together how the virus got on the boat and whether all the subsequent cases were people infected through contact with other people or whether rodents — which are known to carry hantaviruses — that were on board played any part.