Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu has announced that no positive hantavirus cases have been detected in Turkey, as attention turned to Turkish nationals who were aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, where a deadly outbreak recently killed three passengers, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Memişoğlu said claims about possible hantavirus cases in Turkey were being reviewed in light of scientific data and urged the public to rely only on official statements.
“No positive case has yet been detected in our country,” the Health Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Kamuoyuna yansıyan hantavirüs vakalarına ilişkin süreç, Bakanlığımız tarafından bilimsel esaslar doğrultusunda titizlikle takip edilmektedir.
Ülkemizde henüz pozitif vaka tespit edilmemiştir. Vatandaşlarımızın yalnızca resmî makamlar tarafından yapılan açıklamaları dikkate… pic.twitter.com/2EaZ8B0jIP
— Halk Sağlığı Genel Müdürlüğü (@halksagligigm) May 8, 2026
“It is important for our citizens to take into account only statements made by official bodies and to be cautious about unverified information circulating among the public.”
Several Turkish nationals are known to have been aboard or linked to the ship, including travel vlogger Ruhi Çenet, his cameraman, birdwatcher and photographer Emin Yoğurtçuoğlu and his friend Melike Güner.
Çenet and his cameraman disembarked from the MV Hondius in Saint Helena on April 24 and later returned to İstanbul.
Yoğurtçuoğlu said in a video posted on social media that he was still aboard the ship on May 6 as it headed toward the Canary Islands.
“We are on the ship. May 6. We are heading toward the Canary Islands. Everything is fine. There are no new cases. We evacuated our patients. I think they are about to arrive in the Netherlands,” Yoğurtçuoğlu said.
Dünyanın konuştuğu ve Hantavirüs vakası sebebiyle 3 kişinin öldüğü MV Hondius gemisinde kuş gözlemcisi ve doğa fotoğrafçısı, maceracı Emin Yoğurtçuoğlu da var. Emin'den bu sabah durumla ilgili bilgi istedim, o da bu videoyu paylaştı sağ olsun. Durumları gayet iyi görünüyor. Bu… pic.twitter.com/jLqbfceyrt
— Tanrı Şiva (@tanrisiva) May 6, 2026
The World Health Organization said on Thursday that it was coordinating an international response to a cluster of hantavirus cases linked to the Dutch-operated expedition ship, which had traveled from Ushuaia, Argentina, across the Atlantic.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said eight cases had been reported, including three deaths and that five of the cases had been confirmed as hantavirus.
The WHO said the virus involved is the Andes virus, the only hantavirus species known to be capable of limited human-to-human transmission through close and prolonged contact.
“While this is a serious incident, WHO assesses the public health risk as low,” Tedros said, adding that more cases could still be reported because of the virus’s incubation period.
The WHO said it had informed 12 countries that their nationals had disembarked in Saint Helena: Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States in addition to Turkey.
Oceanwide Expeditions, the ship’s Dutch operator, said 30 guests left the MV Hondius in Saint Helena on April 24, including the body of the passenger who died on board on April 11. The company said all passengers who disembarked there had been contacted.
The ship had 114 guests on board when it left Ushuaia on April 1 for a voyage across the Atlantic to Cape Verde. The company said it was working to establish details of passengers and crew who had embarked and disembarked at stops since March 20.
Çenet, who boarded the ship in Ushuaia to film a story about Tristan da Cunha, told Agence France-Presse that passengers were initially informed that the first death was due to natural causes and that the illness was not infectious.
He said normal life on the ship continued after the captain announced the death, with passengers still eating together and not wearing masks.
“They didn’t even consider the possibility of having such a contagious disease,” Çenet said, adding that he and his cameraman decided to self-isolate as a precaution.
Çenet said he was told after returning to Turkey that he did not need to quarantine as long as he showed no symptoms but that he and his cameraman were trying to isolate themselves as much as possible.
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses usually transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents or their urine, droppings or saliva. The Andes virus strain is unusual because it can spread between people in limited circumstances involving close and prolonged contact.
The Saint Helena government said there were no suspected or confirmed hantavirus cases on the island and that the risk to the public remained low.
It said health officials had contacted people who may have had contact with passengers from the MV Hondius and were monitoring a small number of higher-risk contacts.
The MV Hondius, which had been quarantined off Cape Verde, later headed toward Spain’s Canary Islands under international health monitoring.
The WHO said it had deployed an expert to the ship and arranged for 2,500 diagnostic kits from Argentina to be sent to laboratories in five countries to strengthen testing capacity.