The Geneva University Hospital Center for Emerging Viral Diseases (HUG), a WHO collaborating center, has just identified the hantavirus strain that killed three people on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The variety is Andes.
This identification was made possible by a sample taken on May 5, 2026 by the National Center for Infectious Diseases and Virology (CRIVE, HUG’s Institute of Virology) from a person who boarded the MV Hondius and tested positive for hantavirus in a PCR test.
Andes virus is the only hantavirus with documented human-to-human transmission, explains Dr. Manuel Schibler, director of the HUG Institute for Virology.
This important information was immediately passed on to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and WHO.
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Geneva University Hospital
