Two Indian Crew Among Dozens Stranded on Hantavirus Cruise Ship

In a deeply worrying development for India, two Indian nationals are confirmed to be among the passengers and crew aboard the MV Hondius , the Dutch luxury cruise ship at the centre of a deadly Hantavirus outbreak that has shaken the world, with their current health status remaining unknown .

The MV Hondius , owned by Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions , departed Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1 carrying 149 people of 23 nationalities , bound for Antarctica and remote South Atlantic islands. No one on board showed any symptoms at departure. What followed was nothing short of a nightmare at sea.

Symptoms were observed in at least two passengers and two crew members , and WHO's Director for Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove , confirmed that human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out , adding the agency is treating it as a working assumption given how closely the affected individuals had been in contact.

The virus causing the alarm is the Andes strain , the only known variant of Hantavirus capable of spreading between humans, and it carries a fatality rate of up to 50% in the Americas, striking the heart and lungs with terrifying speed.

Three people have already been evacuated off the vessel, with the Canary Islands flatly refusing to allow the ship to dock despite Spain's central government insisting it had a moral and legal obligation to do so.

India is among the 23 nationalities represented on board, and all Indian nationals are reported asymptomatic to date , though no official statement from New Delhi has confirmed their precise condition or whereabouts. For anxious families back home, the silence is deafening.