Can cats get hantavirus or spread hantavirus?
By now you’ve probably seen the tragic news about the passengers who contracted hantavirus aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius.
You might be wondering what hantavirus is, and whether it is something cat guardians should be concerned about. Can cats contract hantavirus? Can cats spread hantavirus to their humans?
The short answer is that you have nothing to worry about. I’ll dive into the details below, but you don’t have to be concerned about any household pets – not dogs, not cats, not even pet rodents like hamsters and gerbils – becoming sick from hantavirus or spreading it to your family.
What happened on the cruise ship where people got sick with hantavirus?
The MV Hondius is a cruise ship that was traveling from Argentina to the Antarctic. New information is coming out every day, but as of this writing, 11 cases of hantavirus have been identified in passengers who were aboard that ship.
Three people have died, including a Dutch couple and an unrelated person. The remaining passengers have been evacuated to their home countries. Eighteen Americans were taken to a quarantine facility in Nebraska. It's unclear how many are sick with the virus.
What is hantavirus?
Hantavirus is a family of viruses that is spread to humans through contact with the droppings, urine, or saliva of wild rats and mice.
The way people usually get infected is by breathing in dust that has been contaminated by mouse droppings or urine. This could happen if a person is sweeping out a shed or attic where rodents were living.
It’s a very rare disease. Fewer than 1000 cases have ever been reported in the U.S.
What are the symptoms of hantavirus?
Hantavirus can have a long incubation period, meaning you can contract the disease but not show symptoms for up to eight weeks.
Early symptoms include fever, headaches, and muscle aches. If the disease progresses to Hantavirus Cardiopulmonary Syndrome, patients experience shortness of breath, coughing, fluid in the lungs, heart failure, and shock.
Death rates from hantavirus depend on the strain, but for the strain that affected the people on the cruise ship, the fatality rate is up to 50%.
What strain of hantavirus infected the people on the cruise ship?
Thanks to genetic sequencing, we know that the viral strain of hantavirus that sickened people on the MV Hondius is the Andes virus.
The Andes virus is not a new strain. It was first identified in 1995 in Argentina, and most cases of Andes virus are still found in Argentina and Chile today. In fact, the Dutch couple who lost their lives to hantavirus on the cruise ship had traveled in Argentina before boarding the ship.
Should I be worried about a hantavirus pandemic?
Unlike COVID-19, which spreads rapidly from person to person with the most casual contact between them, most strains of hantavirus can only be spread from mice or rats to humans.
The Andes strain is the one exception. It can be transmitted from person to person, and it is believed that is how other travelers on the cruise ship contracted the disease.
However, even the Andes strain is not a very contagious virus. It requires very prolonged, close contact to spread from one person to another. When someone contracts Andes virus from another person, it’s usually because they were caring for them when they were sick, or were sleeping in the same bed.
Hantavirus is not going to cause a pandemic.
Is there a cure for hantavirus?
There are no antiviral medications available yet to treat hantavirus and no cure.
When someone is sick with hantavirus, they receive supportive care, including supplemental oxygen, IV fluids, and treatment with a ventilator or ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine. An ECMO machine functions as the heart and lungs for very sick patients.
Can cats and dogs contract hantavirus? What about pet rodents?
Cats and dogs can be infected by hantavirus, which they can contract when hunting rodents.
But they do not get sick from hantavirus or show any symptoms of the disease. If your cat gets hantavirus, your cat will be fine!
Note that there is no test to check if your cat or dog has hantavirus.
If you have small animals at home, there is also no reason to be concerned. There is no evidence that pet hamsters, guinea pigs, or gerbils play any role in contracting or spreading hantavirus.
Can cats or dogs spread hantavirus to other animals or people?
No. Even if your cat has contracted hantavirus, she cannot transmit hantavirus to your family.
That being said, if the cat brings a mouse inside the house, you could, theoretically, contract hantavirus from the mouse. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I’m in favor of keeping cats inside, and this is one more reason to do so.
Just to be safe, wear gloves and a mask when disposing of any rodent your cat has brought home with him. Wash your hands in soap and water after.
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Dawn LaFontaine is a lifelong animal lover who always seems to have a little pet hair in her keyboard. Her blog, Kitty Contemplations, helps cat guardians better understand and care for the special beings they share their lives and homes with, and is a Top 10 cat blog on Feedspot. Her cat-products business, Cat in the Box, sells beautiful, well-made, and award-winning products that she designed to meet the biological needs of cats.
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FOOTNOTES
“Can I Get Hantavirus from My Pet? Here’s What Pet Owners Should Know.” ABC7 Chicago, 15 May 2026, abc7chicago.com/post/can-get-hantavirus-pet-heres-what-owners-should-know/19104877/.
Hantavirus | Washington State Department of Health, doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/illness-and-disease-z/hantavirus. Accessed 15 May 2026.
“Healthy Pets, Healthy People: How to Avoid the Diseases That Pets Can Spread to People.” Paediatrics & Child Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Mar. 2000, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2817764/.
Kee, Caroline. “Will the Hantavirus Outbreak Cause a Lockdown? What Experts Want You to Know.” TODAY.Com, 15 May 2026, www.today.com/health/news/hantavirus-outbreak-lockdown-experts-say-rcna344920.
NPR | A Martínez. “What to Know about the Hantavirus Outbreak on Transatlantic Cruise.” New Hampshire Public Radio, 6 May 2026, www.nhpr.org/2026-05-06/what-to-know-about-the-hantavirus-outbreak-on-transatlantic-cruise.
“Questions and Answers on the Hantavirus Outbreak in a Cruise Ship.” European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 14 May 2026, www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/infectious-disease-topics/hantavirus-infection/surveillance-and-updates/questions-answers-outbreak.