South Africa: How an SA Team of Scientists Hunted a Rare Hantavirus Strain

Africa CDC
Authorities from Cabo Verde, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, and the United Kingdom have initiated a coordinated international response to the Hantavirus cases, including case investigation, isolation and clinical management, medical evacuation, and laboratory testing.
10 May 2026
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
By Estelle Ellis

South African medical scientists have, just like with Covid-19, once again done the country proud by working fast and efficiently to discover the cause of death and illness on a stricken cruise ship.

It started with an email that arrived late on Friday, 1 May 2026, a public holiday, from a concerned colleague. The message was from a UK infectious disease specialist to Professor Lucille Blumberg of the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), and it set events in motion that led to her team finding a rare virus as the cause of an outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius within 24 hours.

Blumberg recounted the team's efforts before Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Health this week.

"It was really - if I have to say it myself - amazing. This was a team effort," she said. "They have done extremely well."

Within 24 hours after she received the email, the team managed to confirm a hantavirus infection in a British patient who had been evacuated to South Africa for treatment on 27 April.

By Wednesday, 6 May, it was identified as the Andes virus - the only strain of hantavirus that can be transmitted between humans. The patient is still being treated in a private hospital in Sandton.

Blumberg said the email she received from her UK colleague stated that there was concern about an outbreak on a ship.

The...

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