Midwest Resident Faces Hantavirus Scare After Dodging Infamous Cruise Outbreak

An Illinois resident is suspected of having contracted hantavirus, even though he was not a passenger on the cruise ship linked to a recent global outbreak.

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) has announced that it is investigating a possible hantavirus case in Winnebago County. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is conducting further testing to confirm the diagnosis.

The CDC has warned that the results from the man’s tests might take up to ten days to be finalized, during which time he will be closely monitored by healthcare professionals.

Authorities have confirmed that the man had no connection to the MV Hondius cruise ship, where an outbreak last month resulted in at least 11 confirmed cases of hantavirus, leading to three fatalities.

Preliminary investigations suggest the Illinois man may have contracted the virus after exposure to rodent droppings while cleaning a residence, according to the IDPH.

‘Typically, we see it in cases like this one, where someone was cleaning an area where rats may have dwelled, and it may have aerosolized the either urine or feces from the rat that contain the virus,’ Saint Anthony Hospital Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Alfredo Mena Lora, per ABC7. 

Officials said the man showed milk symptoms that did not require hospitalization, and he is recovering as expected. He is believed to have a North African strain that is not spread person to person, and is different to the Andes strain that broke out on the MV Hondius cruise ship. 

It comes as an American doctor from Bend, Oregon who took on the role of the cruise ship doctor after its initial doctor fell ill with hantavirus revealed that he has also tested positive for the deadly rat-borne virus. 

A man in Illinois is feared to have contracted hantavirus despite not being on the cruise ship linked to a recent outbreak across the globe. Health officials in Tenerife, where the cruise ship docked, are pictured 

Oregon doctor Stephen Kornfeld, who took on the role of the cruise ship doctor after its initial doctor fell ill with hantavirus, revealed that he has also tested positive for the deadly rat-borne virus

Dr Stephen Kornfeld, a retired oncologist, was praised after he jumped into action and helped care for sick passengers on the cruise ship when they were struck down with the virus. 

Kornfeld told CNN that he has since tested positive for hantavirus, and is in isolation in a biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. 

He said he is currently symptomless, but cautioned that ‘it is still possible that the test represents an evolving disease, and I will get symptoms down the road. This is why I’m in the biocontainment unit.’

Kornfeld joined the cruise in Argentina last month, and previously told CNN he was expecting the trip of a lifetime sailing through the south Atlantic before the hantavirus outbreak. 

He said the voyage fell into chaos when a Dutch couple contracted the hantavirus strain, which is believed to be from a landfill site in Argentina but the source remains under investigation. 

Kornfeld said he ‘fell into the role of becoming the ship doctor’ after the onboard medic was also sickened by the virus, and said the doctor and two other people became seriously ill within a day of the outbreak. 

He described their symptoms as ‘a lot of fever, fatigue, flushing, some gastrointestinal issues, some shortness of breath.’  

‘The fear with hantavirus is you can go from seriously ill to critically ill very quickly,’ he said.

MV Hondius is seen navigating the Atlantic Ocean near Saint Helena island on April 24, 2026

A passenger from the final group to be evacuated from the MV Hondius waves from a bus on the way to the airport in the Granadilla Port on May 11

On Monday, 18 passengers who were on the cruise arrived back in the US. 

The CDC said it will be monitoring all passengers for symptoms for at least 42 days. 

Kornfeld said he felt secure that he would not spread the virus across the US due to the quick actions of health officials. 

He said he is isolating in a ‘very secure facility’, so ‘if I am to get sick, there’s no way that virus is getting out of this building.’ 

Amid fears that the Andes strain of the hantavirus could spread across the globe though person-to-person contact, health officials have scrambled to monitor potential outbreaks in a number of countries. 

On Tuesday night, a British tourist who boarded a plane with a woman who later died from hantavirus was detained at an Italian bar and ordered to quarantine in hospital for a month – despite showing no symptoms and testing negative for the disease. 

The holidaymaker and his companion – who was not even on the flight in question – were apprehended outside the bar on Tuesday night and taken to Sacco Hospital in Milan by the authorities.

They have both been placed in quarantine until June 6, completing the 42-day isolation period required by the ministry of health.

MV Hondius is seen navigating the Atlantic Ocean near Saint Helena island on April 24, 2026

The British citizen, who is in his 60s, had boarded the same Airlink flight from Saint Helena to Johannesburg as MV Hondius passenger Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, who later died, as well as a second person who later tested positive.

Mirjam was the wife of Dutch ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, 70, who is believed to be ‘patient zero’. The couple became sick after visiting a landfill site in Argentina to watch birds.

The UK government notified Italian authorities about the British tourist, who had visited various countries including Amsterdam before arriving in Milan, where his travel plans came to an abrupt halt.

Because he had no private accommodation and was staying in a B&B, he will have to endure the whole of his quarantine in a single room in the Infectious Diseases ward of the hospital.