Health officials across the United States and around the world are monitoring a rare but deadly outbreak of hantavirus after multiple confirmed cases were linked to a luxury cruise ship, including possible patients who weren't ever on the ship.

Three people on the cruise died, including a Dutch couple health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America.

Health officials have identified a fifth California resident who was exposed to the hantavirus strain that spread on a Dutch cruise ship and killed three people.

The ship was reportedly being held as a precautionary measure, pending the outcome of medical tests.

The Andes strain of hantavirus is the only known hantavirus capable of spreading from person to person, making it far more alarming to public health offici

The ship set sail from Belfast on Friday and is currently at a port in Bordeaux.

The hantavirus outbreak grew to 11 cases on Tuesday, after a French woman became infected while aboard a cruise ship and is now being treated with an artificial lung in Paris and a Spanish passenger tested positive after departing the ship.

PARIS (AP) — Over 1,700 passengers and crew on a British cruise ship were ordered to remain on board after an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness, French authorities said Wednesday. They dismissed any link to a deadly hantavirus outbreak on another vessel that has put European health authorities on alert.

As epidemiologists race to find more answers to the origin of the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise, they have ruled out some theories circulating online. Dr. Boris Pavlin, the team lead for field and humanitarian epidemiology at the World Health Organization,