Floating Nightmare: Cruise Ship Being Held At Sea With Deadly Virus Onboard
Rogue Energy
iHeartPodcasts
3.0 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The World Health Organization says hantavirus has been confirmed in the death of one of three cruise ship passengers and suspected in the other 3 “urgent medical” cases. The polar cruise ship is being held off the coast of Cape Verde as health authorities are trying to coordinate the medical evacuation of two crew members who require urgent care, while another passenger is fighting for his life in the hospital. If these cases are confirmed to have spread from human to human, medical experts say this could change the future of travel medicine.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.0 | Hey there, folks. It is Monday, May 4th. And the same rare virus that killed actor Gene Hackman's wife is now suspected in an outbreak on a cruise ship that has killed at least three people so far. |
| 0:22.8 | And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and T.J. |
| 0:26.0 | Robs, I have not heard Hanta virus since Gene Hackman and his wife died. |
| 0:31.9 | And that was the first time I had ever heard of Hanta virus. |
| 0:35.4 | And it is a rare virus. And it's even rarer. Apparently, there is only |
| 0:40.6 | one strain known in the world to actually spread from human to human, and right now, that is what |
| 0:47.7 | the World Health Organization believes, is happening to a cruise ship that is now stranded out in a very remote part of the world, |
| 0:57.4 | waiting for coordination and help to get at least two urgently ill crew members off that ship |
| 1:04.5 | and eventually somehow evacuate the 170 passengers. |
| 1:09.6 | Let's start with our numbers. |
| 1:11.9 | Let me make sure I have these numbers right. We'll go through because some of these deaths were not just on the cruise ship, we'll |
| 1:15.4 | explain, but three dead, right? Yes. Okay, three sick. Yes. Now, where are those three that are |
| 1:22.1 | sick? One of them is a British national who is in a private hospital in Johannesburg. He is fighting for his life. |
| 1:29.4 | He is in intensive care. The other two who are urgently ill and need and require evacuation |
| 1:36.4 | are on board the ship right now. One of the dead bodies is on board the ship right now. And two, one of the patients died in the |
| 1:46.9 | hospital after collapsing in the airport and the other one died at port once he disembarked, |
| 1:52.5 | but he got sick on board. Those were the two. That's the elderly couple, right? Yeah, that was a |
| 1:57.8 | tough one to hear. It's sad because what happened was the 70-year-old man |
| 2:01.3 | died once they were in port. She then, his wife, who's 69 years old, is arranging her plane |
| 2:08.3 | ticket to head back home to meet his body back in the Netherlands where they live. She collapses |
| 2:13.7 | at the airport, is rushed to the hospital and dies shortly after the hospital. So yes, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

