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American Passengers From Hantavirus-Hit Cruise Ship Arrive Back In The U.S.; Triple-Digit Heat Returns To The West As Cities Eye Record Highs; France's Macron Opens Africa Summit In Kenya With Push For New Partnership; Some Soccer Fans Frustrated With FIFA World Cup Ticket Prices. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired May 11, 2026 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[04:32:10]
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there. 17Americans are now back in the U.S. after being evacuated from the cruise ship that was hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak. Their plane arrived in Nebraska just a short time ago, and one of the Americans has tested positive for the virus and another has mild symptoms.
The passengers are expected to be taken to a treatment center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center for assessment and monitoring.
Meantime, in the Canary Islands, the ship is being refueled before it heads to Rotterdam, where it will be disinfected. You're looking at live pictures there. The remaining passengers are set to head home today with a flight to Australia expected in the coming hours.
As much of the world waits to see what happens to those with the hantavirus, you may be wondering where exactly it came from. Well, Ben Hunte, he takes a look at the origins of this strain of the virus.
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BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tracing the origins of an outbreak. Health officials are zeroing in on parts of South America to try to find out how some passengers on the MV Hondius cruise ship contracted a rare strain of hantavirus.
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR-GENERAL. WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Prior to boarding the ship, the first two cases had traveled through Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay on a bird watching trip, which included visits to sites where the species of rat that's known to carry Andes virus was present.
HUNTE (voice-over): Just one type of hunter virus, the Andes strain is known to be able to spread from person to person, and it's primarily found in Chile and Argentina, carried by long tailed pygmy rice rats. But authorities in Tierra del Fuego, the Argentinian province where the ship originated, say there are currently no recorded hantavirus cases there.
And so far, worldwide attention on the port town where the ship was docked hasn't fazed some residents. At least one tour operator in Ushuaia says he's gotten some questions about hantavirus, but it hasn't affected business.
ADONIS CARABAJAL, TOUR OPERATOR (through translator): Beyond inquiries. It has not altered any reservation, has not altered any movement, and everything is going as well as we expected in the low season.
HUNTE (voice-over): But Argentina's health ministry says hantavirus is on the rise in the country, with overall cases of hantavirus almost doubling in the past year with more than 100 cases so far in the current season. That's compared to 57 in the previous one.
The ministry also says teams have been sent out to try to capture and analyze rodents in areas where the infected passengers traveled. The Chilean health ministry says it doesn't believe the passengers were infected in Chile based on the timing of their travels.
But doctors say there are risks of hantavirus across the region, especially in rural areas where there are crops, tall grass, or a subtropical climate.
[04:35:04]
CESAR BUSTOS, INFECTIOUS DISEASE DIRECTOR (through translator): The virus is where it is supposed to be with rodents in nature. When does a human being become infected? When people enter areas that naturally belong to rodents, they are in the countryside, in rural areas, they are where they are supposed to be doing what they are supposed to do.
HUNTE (voice-over): Experts say climate change and human activity are causing rodents to move to new areas, which could be driving up the number of hantavirus cases. Ben Hunte, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATSON: Dr. Charlotte Hammer is an assistant professor in health security and infectious diseases at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. And she joins me now from Cambridge, England. Thank you so much.
Can you bring me up to date? Can you explain the symptoms of this illness and how the transmission is taking place?
DR. CHARLOTTE HAMMER, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN HEALTH SECURITY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE: Certainly. So, as most people by now have heard in various forms, we are talking about the Andes version of the hantavirus here. Hantaviruses are broadly split into Old World and New World hantaviruses. And these two groups present in different ways.
Now, the initial symptoms are really unspecific. They are sort of flu like you feel a bit achy, a bit feverish. There are some potentially some gastrointestinal symptoms. So very, very unspecific, which is also why when we have someone who is presenting with those, we call them a suspected case and we really wait for that lab confirmation to consider them a confirmed case.
Now, later on, what is the dangerous thing about Andes hantavirus and indeed about all the New World hantaviruses, is that this progresses to something known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which really affects your respiration quite severely and which can lead to death, particularly if you don't receive the medical attention needed at that point.
Now, in terms of the transmission, this is not easily transmitted from human to human. So it's a rodent borne virus. So the first transmission usually is from rodents to humans via feces, urine, saliva, usually dried up in enclosed places and then disturbed by feed or brooms or something similar. And then you can breathe that in. With the Andes strain, there is some potential for human to human transmission, which is very likely what we seen here in this case.
And that is then through what we call close and prolonged contact, for which obviously a ship is quite a likely scenario.
WATSON: Dr. Hammer, I understand that your specialty, your research focuses on pandemic preparedness and health security. So I'd like to get your thoughts based on this somewhat complicated evacuation process that's now underway in the Canary Islands.
How would you assess how the Health authorities are dealing with this challenge right now?
HAMMER: Now, while this situation is obviously hugely tragic for the people involved, and what is really important with all of the reporting, all of the commentary, we don't lose track of that human element. It is in some ways almost reassuring because it shows us a global public health machinery working at its best.
We see an incredibly complex situation logistically with just the sheer number of countries involved. The fact that this originally started on a moving entity, moving from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but we are seeing a level of coordination that is very impressive.
We are seeing coordination globally, mainly spearheaded by the World Health Organization. We're also seeing immense coordination on the European side. So we're seeing the E.U. Health Task Force in action. We're seeing all the changes made post COVID really in action. And so far, that looks very impressive.
WATSON: You know, the World Health Organization director has tried to tamp down concerns and said that this is not another COVID-19. Do you agree with them?
HAMMER: Yes, absolutely. And what he's speaking to there is really the nature of this virus, the transmission potential. So if you think back to COVID, you really had that transmission in transient situations, high transmission potential from human to human. Whereas here it takes quite a lot for this to be transmitted from human to human. [04:40:00]
And that is what makes it not such a risk in terms of pandemics.
WATSON: OK. Dr. Charlotte Hammer, thank you so much for sharing your expertise on this health challenge. Really appreciate it.
HAMMER: Thank you.
WATSON: All right. Record breaking temperatures are returning to the U.S. West Coast. Some cities could reach triple digit highs. CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar has the latest.
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ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Several record highs were already set Sunday into the west. But now we're going to start to see the potential for even more as that heat begins to spread eastward in the coming days. Looking at the remainder of Monday, roughly about a dozen or two record high potential dots there. But even as we go into Tuesday, many of those remain.
But you also start to see more of them spreading north and eastward as we head into Tuesday and even Wednesday of the upcoming as that heat really starts to spread but also sticks around for areas of the West. Take a look at Phoenix, for example, 109, 106, 103. Their average high temperature this time of year is about 92 degrees. So still hot, but not nearly as hot as where they're expected to be.
Sacramento, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, even Denver looking at temperatures well above where they normally would be. And for some of those spots, it's going to stick around for quite some time. Las Vegas, take a look at this. Every single one of the next seven days, well above that average high in the mid-80s.
And Dallas, it's going to be a little bit more of a delayed effect. You've got to wait for that heat to spread eastward. But their average high is 82. Not too bad for Monday, sticking right where they should be. But then we jump pretty quickly by the middle of the week and it stays that way all the way through the upcoming weekend.
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WATSON: Thanks, Allison. Now still to come, France is hoping a two-day summit in Nairobi will help forge new partnerships on the continent as former colonies turn away from Paris. We'll have a live report.
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WATSON: Kenyan President William Ruto and French President Emmanuel Macron are welcoming African heads of state and business leaders to a two day summit in Nairobi. France hopes the Africa Forward Summit will help strengthen its ties to the continent and provide new investment opportunities as it faces rejection from its former colonies. CNN's Larry Madowo joins me now from Nairobi from the summit. Great to see you, Larry.
You know, 26 years ago I lived in and covered West Africa. I remember it being very much divided between francophone and anglophone countries. Is Paris trying to reach past those old colonial linguistic fault lines at this meeting?
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Ivan, you're right because you understand how that identity of francophone and anglophone is so strong, but it's rooted in colonial baggage. And in recent years, a lot of those former French colonies in west and Central Africa have turned away from France.
And in the last two or three years, we've seen a spate of coups in Mali, in Burkina Faso, in Niger, in Gabon, in parts of the continent that had traditionally been very close to France. Some of their reserves were held in France.
And now the people there, the populations are saying, you know what, we want to get rid of all of that. And this is now an attempt by President Emmanuel Macron and by France to reach out to English speaking Africa. This is the first time after more than two dozen Africa France summits that they're hosting it in an English speaking country. And President William Ruto of Kenya called it recalibrating the relationship between France and Africa.
President Emmanuel Macron says that this is about coming to the table as easy equal partners. And he did address also those coup d'etats in Mali, in Burkina Faso and in Niger.
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EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: You have three countries, and I do regret that, which decided because of the coup and the behaviors of the military people in charge to put them aside from the rest of the club, by the way, aside of ECOWAS as well and others. It doesn't mean that West Africa is not part of this meeting. The biggest leaders of Western Africa will be here.
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MADOWO: The leaders of Cote d', Ivoire, of Senegal, of other francophone countries are still here. But those three Sahel nations have formed their own group, the alliance of Sahel States, Mali, Burkina, Fasa, Niger, and they are very anti-Western in their outlook. They have embraced Russia for security support. They look to China.
And part of the reason why Emmanuel Macron is here with this delegation of French business is to make sure that they're reaching out beyond this traditional connections in francophone Africa, and especially as the rest of the continent really, not just in francophone Africa, starts to be alive to this colonial baggage and trying to chart a new path. Many view China and Russia here quite favorably. And so countries like France and the U.K. and the U.S. are having to come up against that and make sure that. What are you offering? The name of the summit is interesting. It's something that President
Ruto of Kenya likes to say when he's asked, are you facing east or west? He likes to say, we're facing forward. And that's the name of the summit here, Africa Forward Summit. But it's really a France Africa summit. Ivan.
WATSON: Larry, thanks so much for that update and I'm sure you'll keep us posted on how African leaders respond to Macron's outreach there. Thank you very much. Live from Nairobi, Larry Madowo.
Now, there's just one month to go before the World Cup begins and football fans are thrilled. But high ticket prices means that many people will have to watch from home. A look at some of these soaring costs is coming up right ahead.
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[04:52:39]
WATSON: The New York Knicks are on their way to the NBA Eastern Conference Finals after beating the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday. Deuce McBride ran up the score for the Knicks, hitting seven three pointers. In the first half, however, the Sixers outscored the Knicks and that turned around in the second half.
The Knicks beat the Sixers 144 to 114, catapulting them back to the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight year.
Meanwhile, the Minnesota Timberwolves came out on top in their matchup against the San Antonio Spurs. It wasn't until the fourth quarter that the T Wolves were able to pull away and secure the win, but it only came after the Spurs star player Victor Wembanyama was ejected from the game after drawing a flagrant foul for elbowing Minnesota's Naz Reed. The final score 114 to 109 Minnesota.
And with a month to go before the start of the FIFA World Cup, excitement is building. But the high cost of tickets for matches being played in the U.S., Mexico and Canada means many fans will have to watch the action from home.
Tickets for one of the hottest early matchups, Brazil vs. Morocco in New Jersey, are selling for as much as get this $58,000 on the resale site StubHub. And the high prices don't end with the tickets. Our Leigh Waldman has more.
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LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you paid thousands or even some cases millions of dollars for your FIFA World Cup ticket, I hope that you set some aside to actually make it to those games. If you are traveling from Penn Station here in New York city over to MetLife to catch one of those games, that train ticket is going to cost you $105, a discount from the $150 that was announced just a few weeks ago, but still way more expensive than the typical $12.90 that ticket would run you. And Jersey Transit says this is because it's going to cost them $48 million to try and ferry those fans over to the stadium during these games. It's something that New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill has been very vocal about, her spokesperson telling us in a statement.
Governor Sherrill has been clear that FIFA should contribute to transport its fans to World Cup games.
[04:55:02]
Since it hasn't, she's directed New Jersey Transit to seek private and non-taxpayer dollars to significantly reduce the fare. The governor appreciates all the companies that have already stepped up to lower the cost for ticket holders. She will continue to ensure the World cup is an experience that benefits fans and all New Jerseyans.
Now, FIFA, they don't want to help with the cost here, but New York's governor and New York City's mayor Zohran Mamdani have also weighed in on these huge expenses.
ZOHRAN MAMDANI, NEW YORK MAYOR: The decision of what to charge for these tickets is a decision made by New Jersey Transit and it's a decision that they're making because of the cost that comes with the host duties. And I empathize with the fact that what we see oftentimes is municipalities being left with a cost of a tournament that will generate $11 billion in revenue. What I can say is that what is within New York City's control, we are going to ensure it is the most affordable experience it can be.
WALDMAN: If we look at Boston, another host city, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has increased their transit prices to $80 around these games. It's way up from the typical $20 that fans would normally pay for these tickets. But Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, they're not increasing their fares at all. If you don't want to book a New Jersey Transit ticket here, you don't have a ton of other options.
A bus ticket will cost you $80 here. And if you want to get a parking, nearby the stadium. That's going to run you just over $200. Not a ton of options for fans here who want to take in a game. Leigh Waldman, CNN, New York.
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WATSON: All right, the hills are alive with the sounds of accordion music that's over Slovenia's Lake Bled on Sunday as the country hosted its annual accordion festival. Polka anyone? More than 450 musicians played traditional Slovenian folk favorites on accordions in a mass performance on the promenade.
The festival celebrates Slovenia's rich accordion heritage. Congratulations and thanks for watching. I'm Ivan Watson. CNN Headline Express is next.
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