Since the beginning of the year, 63 cases of hantavirus have been reported in the Sumy region
During the first three months of 2026, 63 cases of hantavirus infection—a virus transmitted to humans by wild rodents—were officially reported in Ukraine. According to official statistics, the vast majority of cases—58—were reported in the Sumy region; three cases were documented in the Chernihiv region; and one case each was detected in the Vinnytsia and Kirovohrad regions.
This was reported by representatives of the Public Health Center in response to an information request from the media outlet hromadske.
Current figures show a continuation of last year’s trend, when the country experienced a large-scale outbreak of this infection with a total of 436 patients, 428 of whom also resided in the Sumy region. By comparison, in previous years, cases were rare—in 2023 and 2024, medical professionals recorded only three cases nationwide, primarily in the Lviv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions.
Specialists at the Public Health Center are reassuring the public, emphasizing that all patients identified in Ukraine were infected exclusively through contact with secretions from infected mice or rats or through the consumption of contaminated food. The dangerous South American strain of hantavirus known as Andes, which can easily spread directly from person to person and cause severe pulmonary complications, has never been recorded in our country.
The WHO director-general noted that hantavirus is not a new COVID
Hantavirus outbreak: experts assess the risks of a global pandemic.
We also reported: Among the crew members of the MV Hondius, where a hantavirus outbreak was recorded, are five Ukrainian citizens. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that no signs of a deterioration in their health have been detected so far.
The disease on board the MV Hondius, owned by the Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions, which has claimed the lives of three passengers, may have been introduced by Argentine rats or mice.
