Dutch husband and wife and third unidentified person reported to have died, with three further people taken ill

A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus infection on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean killed three people – including an elderly married couple – and sickened at least three others, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and South Africa’s health department said on Sunday.

The WHO said an investigation was under way but that at least one case of hantavirus had been confirmed. One of the patients was in intensive care in a South African hospital, the UN’s health agency said in a statement to the Associated Press, and the WHO was working with authorities to evacuate two others with symptoms from the ship.