Three Kansans being monitored for hantavirus after contact with infected cruise ship passenger

Passengers are evacuated by small boat on May 10, 2026, from the MV Hondius in the Granadilla Port, after at least 11 passengers became ill with Andes hantavirus. Three Kansans came into close contact with one of the passengers and are being watched by health officials in case they develop hantavirus symptoms. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Health expert says virus presents low public health risk

By Morgan Chilson

Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — Three Kansans who came into close “high risk” contact with a person who has confirmed Andes hantavirus are being monitored by state and federal officials.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said in a Tuesday news release that three individuals, who won’t be identified because of privacy concerns, are being monitored by KDHE, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a local health department.

The three were not on the cruise ship MV Hondius, where Andes hantavirus has been confirmed in at least 11 people and caused three deaths, and they do not currently have symptoms, the release said.

“The exposure occurred internationally after contact with an individual from the MV Hondius cruise ship who later tested positive for Andes hantavirus,” the release said.

The Andes hantavirus is acquired from a small rat, which leaves the virus in its droppings or feces, said Steven Simpson, a University of Kansas Health System physician who worked on-site in 1996 in Argentina at one of the first hantavirus outbreaks in humans outside the United States.

When those droppings dry out, the virus can attach itself to pieces of dust and infect people when the dust is inhaled, Simpson said.

“A colleague of mine and I were called to Argentina because we were considered the world experts — me, clinical care, and him, pathology and virology of the virus — because they thought they were seeing human to human transmission potentially,” Simpson said.

At the time, Simpson said, he and his colleague tracked the outbreak and, because hospital conditions weren’t ideal — some healthcare workers didn’t have access to gloves, for instance — they determined there wasn’t human to human transmission. That was disproven over the next few years as more research was done, he said.

Today, researchers know the Andes strain of hantavirus passes from human to human in rare circumstances, always involving close proximity to someone who has been infected, Simpson said.

However, he echoes the CDC and KDHE in saying the public health threat is extremely small. 

“There is a minuscule, low chance of anything happening from this whatsoever, because KDHE is taking the appropriate steps,” Simpson said. “They’ve identified the right people, they are asking them to do the right things, and they are watching them to see whether they even get any symptoms.”

KDHE didn’t respond to a Kansas Reflector inquiry about whether the individuals are being quarantined. 

Simpson hopes the attention being paid to hantavirus will make people aware of the cases typically seen in the United States — 890 cases nationwide in 2023, with 20 of those in Kansas — that are acquired from activities like cleaning out barns and stirring up rat or mouse feces.

“We have hantavirus, and especially in western Kansas you can acquire it,” he said. “Because there was an El Nino phenomenon last fall and winter, there’s the possibility that there may be more mice around of our variety, the deer mouse.”

Simpson said people should be careful about stirring up dust as they clean areas where there may be mouse droppings. The hantavirus they could get from those activities in Kansas is more of a threat than the Andes virus, he said. 

Andes hantavirus symptoms

Symptoms of the Andes hantavirus can show up from two days after exposure to, in the longest case, 42 days, Simpson said.

The virus is passed between people most often through bodily fluids, particularly coughing that occurs as the infected person becomes ill, Simpson said. In addition, deep kissing and sexual contact also can pass the virus. It can hang in the air and pass when there is prolonged exposure, such as sleeping in a bed with someone or being in an enclosed area with them, even if there wasn’t physical contact, he said.

The virus can replicate in a person’s salivary glands, so it spreads through the small droplets that come out when people cough, sneeze or even breathe, Simpson said.

“The people with Andes virus are infectious for a day or two. It appears right when they are developing their initial symptoms,” he said.

Symptoms include typical virus symptoms, such as fever, body aches, chills, vomiting and diarrhea, the KDHE news release said.

“Several days after the onset of initial symptoms, people can develop a severe illness that affects the lungs (called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome) causing cough, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing, which can be fatal,” KDHE said. “There is no specific treatment available, and care focuses on supporting the person through their illness.”

Is it mutating?

Viruses do mutate, meaning they adapt as they are spread, but Simpson said that occurs when viruses spread through many carriers repeatedly.

“The key thing here is it takes many generations of passage for a virus to mutate into something that then becomes a threat,” Simpson said. “So far, that has never happened. It looks like perhaps the virus becomes a little bit weaker with each passage, if anything.”

Four is the highest number of generations in which hantavirus has been documented, he said, before it died out. It could have died out for a variety of reasons, such as the sick person staying home and not passing it along, Simpson said.

All of those reasons and the fact that the CDC and KDHE, along with local health officials, are monitoring the situation closely is why Simpson said there isn’t a significant public health threat from the Andes hantavirus outbreak.

This article was republished with permission from the Kansas Reflector. The Kansas Reflector is a non-profit online news organization serving Kansas. For more information on the organization, go to its website at www.kansasreflector.com.