The hantavirus cruise ship and the contamination risk a tourism surge puts on Antarctica
The hantavirus cruise ship and the contamination risk a tourism surge puts on Antarctica
Sam McNeilWed, May 6, 2026 at 7:10 AM UTC
0
Passengers walk inside the volcano at Deception Island in Antarctica, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File) (Copyright 2025 The . All rights reserved)
Antarctica's pristine, frozen landscapes are experiencing a surge in tourism, fuelled by growing fears that climate change is causing irreversible melting. However, experts are now warning that this influx of visitors brings an increased risk of contamination, illness, and other potential damage to the continent's delicate ecosystem.
Despite the high costs and significant travel time involved, visitor numbers, though still small, are escalating rapidly, prompting scientists and environmentalists to raise serious concerns. This burgeoning trend was underscored by a deadly outbreak of the rare hantavirus aboard a Dutch ship during a weeks-long polar cruise.
Most expeditions venture to the Antarctic Peninsula, a region identified as one of the fastest-warming places globally. Between 2002 and 2020, an estimated 149 billion metric tons (164 billion tons) of Antarctic ice melted each year, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
A common route for these voyages involves sailing south from Argentina towards Antarctica, before heading north along the coast of Africa – the very path taken by the cruise ship MV Hondius.
“The sites you will see in Antarctica are extremely unique and not replicable anywhere else on the planet — the whales, the seals, the penguins, the icebergs — it’s all really stunning and it makes a huge impression on people,” said Claire Christian, executive director of the environmental group Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition.
The MV Hondius cruise ship is anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde (Arilson Almeida/AP) (AP)
In 2024, more than 80,000 tourists touched down on the vast ice-cloaked continent and 36,000 viewed from the safety of ships, according to data collected by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators.
The International Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that tourism to Antarctica has grown tenfold in the past 30 years.
That number could rise further in the next decade as costs fall with more ice-capable hulls hitting the water and technological advances, said Hanne Nielsen, a senior lecturer of Antarctic law at the University of Tasmania. Her colleagues at the university estimate the annual figure could triple or quadruple to over 400,000 visits in that time.
Some tourists come to Antarctica for “last chance tourism,” knowing the melting landscape is rapidly changing, Nielsen said.
FILE - Passengers watch as a ship sails through the Lemaire Channel in Antarctica, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File) (Copyright 2025 The . All rights reserved)
Officials have not indicated any evidence of contamination from the MV Hondius.
However, flocks of migratory birds brought avian flu from South America to Antarctica in recent years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That outbreak prompted the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators and others to harden rules for tourists’ conduct and hygiene to protect visitors from being contaminated. To protect the fragile ecosystem from invasive species large and microscopic, visitors are told to stay away from animals and to avoid touching the ground with anything but their feet.
Advertisement
“There are rules that people are bound by when they’re heading south,” Nielsen said, describing her five voyages as a former guide. Crews and passengers use vacuums, disinfectants and brushes to scrub shoes and equipment clear of bugs, feathers, seeds and microbe-carrying dirt.
“Between the tongues and the laces of the boots you can find a lot of things,” she said.
Cruise ships have been struck by outbreaks of diseases like norovirus, which can spread quickly in a ship's close quarters. In 2020, a COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess turned the cruise ship into an incubator for the then-mysterious virus.
Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings.
(Reuters)
The World Health Organization said Tuesday that MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and visited Antarctica and several isolated islands.
WHO is investigating possible human-to-human transmission on the cruise ship, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness. Officials suspect the first infected person likely contracted the virus before boarding, she said, and officials have been told there are no rats on board.
Antarctica is governed by the Antarctic Treaty, which in 1959 enshrined the territory as a scientific preserve used only for peaceful purposes. A series of rules that followed “aim to ensure that all visits, regardless of location, do not adversely impact the Antarctic environment or its scientific and aesthetic values,” according to the treaty’s secretariat.
Companies and scientific ventures voluntarily comply with biosecurity guidelines and submit environmental impact assessments for Antarctic operations.
The treaty was written when tourism numbers were much lower, Christian said.
“Activity needs to be regulated appropriately, as you would with any of the world’s sensitive and precious ecological sites,” Christian said from Hiroshima, Japan, where she was preparing for an Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting. There she'll join calls to strengthen protections for Antarctica's penguins, whales, seabirds, seals and krill — tiny creatures at the base of the food chain.
For now, the lure of the frozen frontier continues to draw visitors.
“You can put a footprint in Antarctica and it’s still there 50 years later,” Christian said.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
