Pyongyang warns of hantavirus danger after cruise ship outbreak

Published: 11 May. 2026, 14:24

An inflatable boat approaches the hantavirus-hit cruise ship MV Hondius to transfer people at the Port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife in Spain, May 10. [YONHAP]

 

North Korea has raised the alarm over the danger posed by the hantavirus after an outbreak on a foreign cruise ship killed three passengers, echoing its response to the Covid-19 pandemic years earlier.

 

The Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers’ Party’s official newspaper, reported Monday on the outbreak of the Andes strain of the virus on a ship sailing in the Atlantic Ocean, describing it as “raising concerns from the international community.”

 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a Level 3 emergency response over the outbreak, activating its emergency operations center, it added.

 

The paper urged the public to minimize contact with infected rodents, maintain cleanliness at home and in the workplace and practice good personal hygiene to reduce the risk of infection.

 

The report followed an earlier dispatch on Friday, when it covered the first fatality aboard the MV Hondius, which had departed from Argentina.

 

The coverage appears intended to alert the public to the potential risk of the virus reaching the country. It echoed Pyongyang’s response to Covid-19, when it sealed its borders for years to halt the spread of the virus.

 

At that time, the shutdown effectively halted economic exchanges with its key trading partners, China and Russia, and is believed to have caused significant economic damage.

Yonhap