标签： Antigua and Barbuda

A hantavirus outbreak linked to the expedition cruise vessel MV Hondius has triggered an international public health response, with the World Health Organization (WHO) confirming five confirmed infections among people connected to the ship and three deaths recorded as of Thursday. Health agencies across more than half a dozen countries are racing to trace contacts and contain the spread of the rare Andes strain of the virus, after passengers and crew dispersed globally before the outbreak was fully detected.

The first suspected case emerged in mid-April, shortly after the ship departed Argentina on a cruise late last month. South Africa’s Department of Health confirmed the initial patient was a 70-year-old Dutch man who developed sudden symptoms including fever, headache, abdominal pain and diarrhea while on board, and died on the vessel on April 11. Two more fatalities followed: a second Dutch national and a German citizen.

As of Thursday, 146 people from 23 different countries remain on the MV Hondius under strict precautionary quarantine protocols, according to the ship’s operator, Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions. Roughly 30 passengers disembarked at the remote South Atlantic territory of Saint Helena in late April, and several critically ill patients were airlifted to Europe for urgent medical care earlier this week. The remaining people on board are scheduled to arrive at Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands around noon local time Sunday, per updates from Spanish public health authorities. Once they dock, all passengers and crew will be repatriated via chartered flights to their home countries.

Health systems across multiple nations are now managing active monitoring and treatment for people linked to the outbreak. In the Netherlands, three evacuated patients are currently receiving hospital care: a British national, a 65-year-old German citizen, and a 41-year-old Dutch crew member. Two of the three are in serious condition, while the third, who remains asymptomatic, is also under medical observation as a precaution. Separately, a KLM airline crew member is currently undergoing testing at an Amsterdam hospital after potential exposure to a deceased passenger who died in South Africa. If her test returns positive, she will be the first person infected with the virus outside of the ship’s passenger and crew roster. Infectious disease specialists at Amsterdam University Medical Center expect to receive test results by the end of Thursday.

In South Africa, the second confirmed hantavirus case – a British passenger who fell ill on April 27 – remains in intensive care at a private Johannesburg hospital, though the WHO reports his condition is improving. Switzerland confirmed one additional positive case Wednesday: a passenger who returned home from the cruise is currently receiving treatment in Zurich. UK health authorities report seven British nationals disembarked at Saint Helena on April 24, two of which are isolating at home as a precaution, while four remain on the island and contact tracers are still locating a seventh who has not yet returned to the United Kingdom. U.S. public health officials are monitoring three repatriated asymptomatic passengers: two in Georgia and one in Arizona, with additional American passengers reported to have returned to Texas and Virginia. Singapore’s Communicable Diseases Agency confirmed two Singaporean men in their 60s who were on the cruise are self-isolating and undergoing testing, one with a mild runny nose and the other with no symptoms.

The situation has drawn widespread international attention, with many observers drawing comparisons to the early, unmanaged spread of COVID-19, as passengers had already dispersed across the globe before the full scope of the outbreak was understood. Oceanwide Expeditions confirmed Thursday it is working closely with global health authorities to map the full travel history of all passengers and crew who boarded or disembarked the MV Hondius at any stop after March 20.

Public health officials have stressed that the outbreak is tied to the Andes strain of hantavirus, a rare pathogen that can spread between humans through close prolonged contact, though it does not easily transmit at a population level. While the WHO acknowledges additional cases are likely to emerge in the coming weeks as contact tracing continues, the organization stressed it does not expect a large-scale global epidemic similar to COVID-19, and there is currently no evidence of widespread community transmission risk.

Investigators are still working to pinpoint the origin of the outbreak, but the WHO is working under the leading hypothesis that the two deceased Dutch passengers were infected before they ever boarded the MV Hondius, during pre-cruise sightseeing in Argentina. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters Thursday that the first two infected patients completed a bird-watching tour through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay that included stops at locations where rat species known to carry hantavirus are endemic. Because hantavirus has an incubation period of between one and six weeks before symptoms appear, public health officials explain that patients often become infected weeks before they start showing signs of illness.

The latest 2025 joint report from the United Nations, compiled by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNFPA, the World Bank Group and UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, has painted a mixed picture of maternal mortality progress across the 14 CARICOM member states, documenting decades of broad gains but a concerning slowdown in improvements over the last eight years.

The 2023 estimates included in the report highlight dramatic disparities in lifetime risk of pregnancy-related death across the bloc, which brings together Caribbean nations to foster regional integration and cooperation. At the highest end of risk, Haiti faces a grim lifetime maternal mortality risk of 1 in 118, while Antigua and Barbuda boasts one of the lowest risks in the region at 1 in 2,108. Most CARICOM nations fall between these two extremes, with lifetime risks ranging from 1 in 500 to 1 in 2,100 – a better outcome than the global average lifetime risk of 1 in 272, and on par with the broader Latin America and Caribbean regional average of 1 in 789.

When tracking change across the 23-year period from 2000 to 2023, progress has been far from uniform across the bloc. Five nations – Suriname, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Dominica – have achieved remarkable gains, cutting their maternal mortality rates by 40% or more since 2000. Haiti and several other CARICOM nations have also recorded net reductions over the full 23-year timeline. However, the report identifies three notable outliers: Jamaica, The Bahamas, and Grenada, all of which saw higher maternal mortality levels in 2023 than they recorded in 2000.

Beyond the uneven national results, the data confirms a clear slowdown in maternal mortality reduction across the region over the most recent eight-year period, mirroring a broader trend across Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole. Between 2000 and 2023, Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the smallest overall reduction in maternal mortality of any world region, at just 16.8%.

Even amid these challenges, the report notes a key bright spot: eight out of the 14 measured CARICOM countries have already hit the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal target for maternal mortality, which calls for fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.

Widespread global use of harmful skin-lightening products laced with mercury has spurred the World Health Organization (WHO) to roll out a groundbreaking new behavioural insights toolkit, designed to help nations tackle the root causes of this dangerous public health trend and advance global efforts to eliminate toxic mercury-containing cosmetics.

Developed as a core component of WHO’s multi-country initiative to eradicate mercury-infused skin-lightening goods, the toolkit equips public health authorities with structured resources to unpack the social, cultural and personal drivers that lead communities to use these products. The data and insights gathered through the framework are critical to crafting targeted, context-appropriate policies and interventions that reduce consumer demand for goods linked to severe health and environmental harm.

Skin-lightening practices remain common across dozens of countries worldwide. While these products work by suppressing the body’s production of melanin, the pigment that gives skin its color, a large share of over-the-counter options contain hazardous mercury, a chemical WHO has ranked among the top 10 substances posing the greatest threat to global public health. Even low-dose exposure to mercury can trigger permanent neurological damage, and it carries particularly severe risks for fetal development and young children’s growth. Beyond human health, mercury also inflicts lasting environmental damage: when product residue is washed off during daily use, it enters wastewater systems, accumulates in soil, waterways and ecosystems, and persists in the environment without breaking down.

Global momentum to eliminate mercury-containing cosmetics has grown in recent years, aligned with obligations under the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the international treaty designed to protect human and environmental health from mercury pollution. Convention parties have increasingly recognized that regulatory action alone cannot solve the problem; understanding the behavioural drivers of consumer demand is essential to effective prevention. This growing consensus is formalized in the 2025 Libreville Commitment, signed in Gabon, which requires nations to integrate behavioural science approaches into national strategies to eliminate mercury-containing skin-lightening products.

Between 2022 and 2026, pilot projects implemented in Gabon, Jamaica and Sri Lanka with funding from the GEF-UNEP partnership generated key lessons for national-scale implementation. The trials underscored the urgent need for targeted workforce capacity-building, iterative tool testing and adaptation, audience segmentation to address different user groups, efficient resource allocation, and strengthened national data analysis systems.

A standout feature of the new toolkit is a customizable user journey mapping template, which helps public health stakeholders visualize the full cycle of how consumers first encounter skin-lightening products, begin regular use, and eventually adopt the practice as a long-term habit. By building on existing research to map context-specific user journeys, officials can identify high-impact intervention points where public health messaging and policy will resonate most effectively. This framework shifts action away from one-size-fits-all generic solutions toward targeted, strategic interventions that align with real-world behavioural patterns, allowing nations to prioritize limited resources for maximum impact. The first published user journey, focused on women’s experiences with skin-lightening products, draws on evidence from a 2026 global systematic review of skin whitening practices led by researcher Williams et al.

“Understanding the complex set of social, cultural and economic influences that lead people to voluntarily use skin-lightening products has to be the first critical step in designing effective interventions and policies to end these harmful practices,” explained Elena Altieri, Global Lead for Behavioural Insights at WHO headquarters. “Behavioural insights and user journey mapping show us exactly where, when and how to intervene most effectively. This toolkit gives researchers a standardized, evidence-based approach while still enabling them to generate context-specific insights that work for their national populations.”

The toolkit was officially launched on February 25, 2026, in Panama City during a regional workshop focused on mercury elimination for the Americas and Caribbean. The launch event brought together senior representatives from ministries of health and environment across the region, including delegations from Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago, alongside other public and private sector stakeholders.

In addition to the user journey mapping framework, the full toolkit includes qualitative and quantitative data collection instruments, clear ethical guidance for conducting behavioural research with vulnerable communities, and practical actionable recommendations for translating insights into policy. It is built on empirical evidence from behavioural studies conducted across 43 countries, as well as on-the-ground implementation lessons from the recent pilot projects, making it a tested, adaptable resource for nations of any income level grappling with harmful skin-lightening practices.