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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, September 2nd 2026 - 15:31 UTC

Health & Science

  • Wednesday, May 6th 2026 - 16:10 UTC

    WHO confirms Andes strain in MV Hondius outbreak and traces 23 passengers who disembarked at Saint Helena

    The MV Hondius is expected to take between three and four days to reach the Canary Islands from its current position off Cape Verde

    The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Wednesday that the variant responsible for the hantavirus outbreak aboard polar cruise ship MV Hondius is the Andes virus, the only documented strain capable of human-to-human transmission, raised the total number of linked cases to eight, and launched the international tracing of 23 passengers who left the ship two weeks ago during a stop at the island of Saint Helena. The confirmation of the strain represents a significant epidemiological development and substantially widens the scope of the health investigation.

  • Tuesday, May 5th 2026 - 22:18 UTC

    Falklands monitor MV Hondius hantavirus outbreak and clarify the route did not include the islands

    The Falkland Islands Government announced that the KEMH “will review its policies for receiving unwell passengers off cruise ships, on a case-by-case basis”

    The Falkland Islands Government issued an official statement on Tuesday confirming that it is closely monitoring the hantavirus outbreak aboard the polar cruise ship MV Hondius — a vessel that frequently operates in the archipelago's waters — and took the opportunity to correct information reported by some international media outlets suggesting that the ship had stopped at the islands on its current voyage from Ushuaia. The Falkland Islands Maritime Authority clarified that this information is incorrect and that the Hondius's most recent visit to the archipelago was in mid-February, weeks before the journey that triggered the current health crisis.

  • Tuesday, May 5th 2026 - 21:58 UTC

    Spain agrees to receive hantavirus-hit cruise ship in Canary Islands following WHO request

    The reception protocol will be developed by the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)

    The Spanish government on Tuesday night authorised the docking in the Canary Islands of the polar cruise ship MV Hondius, on which a hantavirus outbreak has already left three people dead, after Cape Verdean authorities denied it entry to their ports and following a formal request from the World Health Organization (WHO) that invoked Spain's “moral and legal obligation” to assist the 147 passengers and crew on board, including 14 Spanish citizens.

  • Tuesday, May 5th 2026 - 03:23 UTC

    Cape Verde denies docking to hantavirus-hit cruise ship as WHO confirms seven cases

    Aboard the Dutch-flagged Hondius are 147 passengers and crew members of 23 nationalities, including 17 Americans and at least 4 Canadians

    Cape Verde's health authorities on Monday denied permission to dock at the port of Praia to polar cruise ship MV Hondius, on board which the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed seven cases of hantavirus — two of them laboratory-verified — and three deaths linked to the voyage. The decision leaves the nearly 150 people remaining on board in prolonged isolation in Atlantic waters, while medical evacuations are coordinated for patients in the most serious condition and authorities evaluate the possibility of continuing the journey toward the Canary Islands, on Spanish territory.

  • Monday, May 4th 2026 - 01:45 UTC

    Three dead in hantavirus outbreak aboard polar cruise ship from Ushuaia bound for Cape Verde

    The current itinerary included stops at the Falklands, the South Georgia Islands, and Saint Helena. According to maritime tracking websites, the ship was on Sunday off the port of Praia

    The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed three deaths on Sunday aboard the polar cruise ship MV Hondius from a hantavirus outbreak, a disease typically transmitted through rodents. The vessel, operated by the Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions, had set sail from the port of Ushuaia, in Argentina's Tierra del Fuego province, on March 20, bound for the port of Praia in Cape Verde, where its journey was scheduled to conclude on May 4.

  • Monday, April 20th 2026 - 21:44 UTC

    Falklands: Uruguay Sciences Faculty researching sandy beaches of the Islands

    The project is in collaboration with the Falklands South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute, SAERI, and is funded by the UK Government

    A group of Uruguayan scientists have spent the last two weeks gathering samples from beaches around the Falkland Islands. Their research is aimed at discovering how humans and wildlife affect ecosystems within the sandy coastline.

  • Wednesday, April 15th 2026 - 10:00 UTC

    Bukele bets on Google to build “world's best health system” as medical sector decries layoffs

    “The 30,000 daily appointments are human doctors treating patients with AI support. But AI agents will be doing this separately and in parallel,” he specified.

    El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced on Tuesday in a national broadcast the launch of the second phase of Dr. SV, a public health application developed with Google Cloud that incorporates artificial intelligence based on the Gemini model to detect, diagnose and monitor patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and kidney conditions.

  • Saturday, April 11th 2026 - 04:44 UTC

    Orion capsule splashes down in Pacific, completing Artemis II, first crewed Moon flight in over 50 years

    Teams from NASA, the U.S. Navy and Air Force, deployed from the USS John P. Murtha, proceeded with crew recovery

    NASA's Orion capsule splashed down at 8:07 p.m. ET on Friday (00:07 GMT Saturday) in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California, completing the Artemis II mission, the first crewed flight to the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972.

  • Friday, April 10th 2026 - 17:54 UTC

    Argentina permanently revokes licenses of laboratories implicated in contaminated fentanyl case

    Anmat stated that the evidence gathered “creates a sufficiently founded basis to conclude that the quality controls of the firms lacked efficacy, safety and quality”

    Argentina's National Administration of Drugs, Foods and Medical Devices (Anmat) permanently revoked the operating licenses of laboratories HLB Pharma and Laboratorios Ramallo, linked to the production of contaminated fentanyl that caused the deaths of at least 111 people between late 2024 and the first half of 2025, in one of the worst health tragedies in the country's recent history.

  • Thursday, April 9th 2026 - 21:53 UTC

    Scottish cameraman Doug Allan dies in Nepal during trek to Annapurna base camp

    Allan, born in Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1951, was principal cameraman on some of the BBC's most influential documentary series

    Wildlife cameraman and photographer Doug Allan died on Wednesday at a hospital in Pokhara, Nepal, after suffering a brain hemorrhage during a trek to Annapurna base camp, the world's tenth highest mountain. He was 74.