Danish passenger on ferry not infected with deadly hantavirus, Faroese professor confirms

A Danish man hospitalised in the Faroe Islands after falling ill on a ferry was not infected with the deadly hantavirus strain reported in international media, but with a far milder variant that does not spread between humans, according to a Faroese infectious disease expert.

Shahin Gaïni, professor of infectious diseases at the University of the Faroe Islands, told public broadcaster Kringvarp Føroya that the patient was suffering from puumala hantavirus, a less severe form that poses no risk of human-to-human transmission.

The man had been seriously unwell before boarding the Norröna ferry, and his condition deteriorated during the voyage to the Faroe Islands, leading to his admission at the National Hospital. Days later, he was transferred to an intensive care unit in Odense, Denmark, where he resides, to receive urgent dialysis treatment.

Gaïni noted that authorities were initially unaware the man had slept in a shelter on the island of Fyn—a possible exposure site—before his ferry journey.