Image shows 2025 Spanish military exercise, not 'staged' hantavirus evacuations
- Published on May 15, 2026 at 22:50
- 2 min read
- By AFP Middle East & North Africa
- Translation and adaptation Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
Conspiracy theories alleging the May 2026 hantavirus outbreak reported on a cruise ship was planned have surged online, but a photo claimed to show a cameraman filming evacuations without wearing personal protective equipment is unrelated and not proof the global health scare was staged. In reality, the image shows a Spanish military exercise a year prior.
"Don’t be fooled! The #Hantavirus HOAX," says a May 13, 2026 post sharing the picture on X.
The image shows a group of people dressed head-to-toe in personal protective equipment and carrying a patient on a biocontainment stretcher across the dock in front of a large ship. Behind them, a cameraman wearing plain clothes is descending a ramp connected to the vessel and seemingly recording the scene.
The visual rocketed across X and other platforms, such as Threads and Instagram, spreading in multiple languages as users alleged the hantavirus was a "hoax" or that the evacuations were "staged" events filmed from a movie set.
The posts came as authorities around the world monitored passengers of the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius and other people potentially exposed to the hantavirus, after an outbreak was reported on the ship as it sailed across the Atlantic Ocean.
Health officials have repeatedly emphasized that the broader risk to public health from the transmission of the Andes strain of the rare rat-borne virus -- the only variant known to spread between people -- is low.
Globally, the outbreak's death toll remains at three as of May 15.
The cases nonetheless revived "plandemic" and other conspiracy theories that flourished during the Covid-19 pandemic. An AFP analysis found widespread, baseless posts across platforms alleging a sinister plot to force vaccinations on the population, coerce people into lockdown or sway the US midterm elections in November.
The online claims that a photo captured evacuations being staged to drive global hysteria are also false.
Reverse image searches traced the photo to the Spanish Port of Almería's website, where it appeared as part of a May 7, 2025 article about an international maritime exercise involving the Spanish Navy and health ministry (archived here).
The report says the photo shows a drill that simulated the arrival of a ship with suspected cases of Ebola, a rare but highly lethal disease causing fever, bleeding and organ failure.
Local news outlets captured additional photos and video footage of the simulation from other angles (archived here, here and here). The reports reiterated that the exercise was meant to replicate the experience of evacuating potential Ebola patients
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the hantavirus here.
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