Hantavirus is here – what does it mean for the New Zealand workplace?

By the time the MV Hondius docked at Tenerife in the Canary Islands on the morning of 10 May, the world had been watching for days. The Dutch expedition cruise ship, which had departed Ushuaia in southern Argentina on 1 April carrying around 150 passengers and crew of 23 nationalities, had become the unlikely centre of a global health response involving 22 countries, the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and health authorities across the globe.

The cause: hantavirus. Specifically, the Andes strain — a rare and dangerous variant with a mortality rate that the CDC puts at 38 per cent for serious cases, with some clinical estimates reaching higher.

As of this week, eight cases have been confirmed or suspected among those on board, with three deaths. Passengers have been hospitalised across South Africa, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Saint Helena. The CDC has classified the outbreak as a Level 3 emergency response.

For most New Zealand office workers, hantavirus is not a daily concern — and authorities are clear that it shouldn't become one. But for HR leaders and people managers, the outbreak raises questions entirely relevant to their roles: what does a novel infectious disease mean for duty of care obligations under New Zealand law? How should employers communicate emerging health risks to staff? And are your pandemic response frameworks still fit for purpose?

What is hantavirus, and how does it spread?

Hantavirus is a family of viruses found primarily in rodents, and is not new. Human infection typically occurs through breathing in airborne particles from the droppings, urine or saliva of infected animals — most commonly rats and mice. New Zealand's health authorities have confirmed there are no reports of hantavirus infection in humans in Aotearoa, and the risk to New Zealanders remains low.

The Andes strain, however, is distinctive. It is the only known type of hantavirus documented to spread between people — not just from animals to humans. That human-to-human transmission, while rare and typically requiring close prolonged contact, is what has drawn global attention to the MV Hondius outbreak.

Symptoms begin like influenza: fever, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea. But the disease can progress rapidly to severe respiratory failure, with lungs filling with fluid. The CDC puts the mortality rate for those who develop respiratory symptoms at 38 per cent; some clinical estimates place it higher, at up to 50 per cent. Symptoms can appear anywhere from four to 42 days after exposure — a particularly long incubation window that complicates contact tracing and monitoring.

University of the Sunshine Coast Associate Professor and microbiologist Joanne Macdonald has noted publicly that the Andes virus is endemic in Argentina and Chile, and has a specific reservoir host found only in that region. That geographical specificity is a key reason why local transmission in New Zealand is considered highly unlikely.

The PCBU lens: duty of care and infectious disease

The fact that New Zealand workers are unlikely to contract hantavirus at their desks does not mean employers should file this story away. What the outbreak does — clearly and with urgency — is illustrate how quickly a rare pathogen can become a multi-country HR crisis.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA), persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and others in the workplace. As HRD New Zealand has previously outlined in its guide to contagious diseases and health and safety obligations, that duty explicitly includes the risk of exposure to infectious diseases — and PCBUs are required to be sufficiently informed about how a disease spreads and whether there are particular risk factors for their specific workplace.

The practical implications for New Zealand workplaces in the current environment include several areas of focus.

Business travel to affected regions. Any kaimahi with planned travel to Argentina, Chile or other parts of South America where the Andes virus is endemic should be briefed on the risks. Rodent exposure in rural or outdoor environments — common on adventure travel or fieldwork — carries the primary transmission risk. As Bell Gully employment partner Liz Coats has previously noted on HRD New Zealand, if an employee is performing work related to their employment, health and safety duties apply — including when they are overseas. Employers should plan the trip carefully, set clear expectations before the employee leaves, and maintain regular check-ins while they are away. Contingency plans should also be in place. MFAT's SafeTravel website is the appropriate first reference point for health advisory information on specific destinations.

Keeping employees safe off-site. As HRD New Zealand has reported on the scope of employer obligations, a trip away from the work premises to see a customer or client — let alone international travel — is covered by the HSWA, with the PCBU potentially liable if things go wrong. For employees travelling to South America for work purposes, the duty of care does not end at the airport departure gate.

Returning travellers and monitoring. Given hantavirus's incubation period of up to 42 days, an employee who has recently returned from South America and develops flu-like symptoms warrants prompt medical attention. PCBUs have both a right and an obligation to require a sick person to leave the workplace to keep others safe, and it may be appropriate to put flexible working arrangements in place. HR teams should have clear protocols for what happens when a staff member reports potential exposure to a serious infectious disease.

Rodent management in the physical workplace. The primary hantavirus risk is environmental or travel-related, but it is worth noting that hantavirus antibody-positive rodents have been detected in New Zealand, even if human infection has not been documented locally. Warehouses, storage facilities, construction sites and rural workplaces where rodents may be present should have clear pest management protocols in place.

The pandemic preparedness gap

The MV Hondius outbreak is, in many respects, an amplified version of the kind of infectious disease scenario HR departments should be planning for — even when the probability of local spread is low. The ship's cramped quarters, shared spaces and multinational passenger manifest created the conditions for transmission that no one had anticipated when the voyage departed.

For employers, the parallel is the New Zealand workplace. Open-plan offices, shared kitchens, hot-desking arrangements and high-density common areas are — as COVID-19 demonstrated at considerable cost — capable of accelerating the spread of respiratory illness in ways that trigger serious operational and legal consequences.

What this outbreak should prompt is a review. Do your current infectious disease protocols reflect the post-COVID environment? Do workers know what to do if they suspect exposure to a novel pathogen? Is your business travel policy updated to flag destinations with active health advisories?

New Zealand's own post-COVID research has been instructive here. A University of Victoria report prepared for the Ministry of Health recommended that employers reconsider sick leave and employment support policies to ensure people can take time off when unwell during a pandemic or crisis — and encouraged employers to work more flexibly and reduce stigmatisation of illness in the workplace. That recommendation is as relevant to a novel pathogen scenario as it was to COVID-19.

It is also worth noting that COVID-19 safety culture has lasting effects: research has shown that workplaces with strong infectious disease protocols shape employee health behaviours not just on-site, but outside work hours too. The culture a PCBU sets matters beyond the four walls of the office.

The Public Health Communication Centre has also called for every New Zealand business to have access to competent health and safety advisers, noting that New Zealand's workplace fatality rate remains higher than in Australia and the United Kingdom. Infectious disease preparedness sits squarely within that gap.

What HR should do now

The immediate risk to New Zealand workplaces from hantavirus is low. That assessment is consistent across health authorities here and internationally.

But "low risk" is not the same as "no action required." For PCBUs and HR leaders, the following steps are appropriate and proportionate right now:

Review your travel risk framework. Ensure employees travelling to South America — particularly Argentina and Chile — are aware of the current health advisory context and understand basic precautions around rodent exposure. Check MFAT's SafeTravel site for current advisories.

Update your infectious disease policy. If your organisation's pandemic and infectious disease policy was last reviewed during COVID-19, it may not adequately address the full spectrum of novel pathogens. A well-constructed policy should address sick leave, flexible and remote work triggers, communication protocols, and the PCBU's obligations under the HSWA — in a single coherent document.

Brief managers, not just employees. The instinct during emerging health events is to communicate to the workforce broadly. But managers need specific guidance: how to respond if a team member reports potential exposure, how to handle requests for flexible work arrangements, and where the boundary sits between reasonable inquiry and an employee's privacy rights.

Maintain perspective. Workforce anxiety around infectious disease outbreaks is real and can be disruptive. Clear, factual communication from PCBUs — grounded in official guidance from Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora, WorkSafe NZ and the WHO — is one of the most effective tools HR has. Panic is not a health and safety outcome.

The bottom line

Hantavirus will not sweep through New Zealand offices. Experts are clear on that. But a deadly outbreak involving at least 22 nationalities, a 42-day incubation window and documented human-to-human transmission is precisely the kind of event that stress-tests whether an organisation's infectious disease preparedness is real or ceremonial.

For New Zealand HR leaders, the question is not whether your employees will contract hantavirus at their desks. It is whether, if something equally novel and equally unexpected emerged tomorrow, your organisation would know what to do.

The MV Hondius passengers did not expect to be caught in the middle of a global health response when they boarded in Ushuaia six weeks ago. Employers rarely do.

For more on workplace health and safety obligations in New Zealand, see HRD New Zealand's coverage of contagious disease obligations for PCBUs, employer H&S duties outside the workplace, and WHS adviser recommendations from the PHCC.