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Agence France-Presse

Associated Press

Passengers aboard a cruise ship affected by a deadly hantavirus outbreak will start being flown to their countries of origin after the vessel arrives in the Canary Islands on Sunday, the Spanish government said on Friday.
The MV Hondius is scheduled to reach the port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, on Sunday morning, cabinet minister Angel Victor Torres told journalists.
“That same day, we will have planes available and will be able to start getting these people onto the planes,” he said.
But the Spanish archipelago’s regional government said evacuations must take place between Sunday and Monday because adverse weather will force the ship to leave.
“The only window of opportunity we have to carry out this operation is around 12 o’clock on Sunday morning and until conditions change from Monday,” regional government spokesman Alfonso Cabello told reporters on Friday.
“Otherwise, the ship must leave and no operation could be carried out again in theory … until the end of May,” he said, citing wind and swell.
“If the operation is not completed on Monday, the ship must continue its journey because navigation conditions around the port will change significantly,” Cabello added.
Interior ministry sources had earlier said evacuations would begin on Monday, with European Union countries repatriating their own citizens.
The MV Hondius is a Dutch-flagged vessel and Dutch officials said on Friday they were also in close contact with the ship’s owner and authorities of countries whose citizens are on board.
The United States has agreed to send a plane to the Canary Islands to repatriate its 17 citizens from the cruise ship. The British government also said it will charter a plane to evacuate the nearly two dozen British nationals on board.
The fate of the MV Hondius has prompted international concern after it emerged that three people on board have died since the vessel departed Argentina in April.


Three unwell passengers were removed from the ship on Wednesday off Cabo Verde (formerly known as Cape Verde) before it continued to the Canary Islands with nearly 150 people from 23 countries still on board.
Health Minister Monica Garcia said foreign nationals showing symptoms, if they do not require urgent medical care, would be evacuated to their home countries under arrangements made by their respective governments.
“We are taking all the decisions we need to take, always knowing that we must assess all possible scenarios,” she said in an interview with Spanish public television.
Spanish authorities have said the ship will anchor off Tenerife and will not be allowed to dock, with passengers transferred to the port by a smaller vessel.
They will then be taken to the nearby airport by bus, Spain’s head of emergency services, Virginia Barcones, told public broadcaster TVE.
“In principle, these are asymptomatic individuals who will not require special transport,” she said.




The World Health Organization considers the risk to the wider public from the outbreak as low, and on Friday, it confirmed that a flight attendant on a plane briefly boarded by an infected cruise passenger had tested negative.
Her possible infection had raised concerns about the virus’ potential transmissibility. Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesman, said on Friday her negative result should alleviate panic.
“The risk remains absolutely low,” he said of the virus outbreak. “This is not a new Covid.”
Hantavirus is usually spread by the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
None of the remaining passengers or crew on the ship is currently symptomatic, the Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions cruise ship company said on Thursday.
Health authorities across four continents were continuing to track down and monitor passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. They are also trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.
On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator said on Thursday.
It was not until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the WHO said.

The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25, and had later fallen ill. She was taken to an isolation ward at an Amsterdam hospital on Thursday.
The cruise passenger briefly aboard that flight, a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship, was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe and was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.
The Dutch public health service is currently undertaking contract tracing on passengers from the flight who had contact with the ill woman before she left the plane.
On Friday, UK health authorities said a third British national is suspected to have the hantavirus.
The UK Health Security Agency said the suspected case is on Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory in the South Atlantic where the ship stopped in April.
There was no word on the person’s condition.
Two other Britons who were on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus. One is admitted to hospital in the Netherlands and the other in South Africa.
Authorities in South Africa are working to trace contacts of any passengers who previously got off the ship. They have focused mainly on an April 25 flight from the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic to Johannesburg, the day after some passengers disembarked on the island.


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Spain

Spain to repatriate guests as hantavirus-hit cruise ship heads for Canaries

Members of the media await the arrival of the cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife, Spain, on Friday. Photo: Reuters

The fate of the MV Hondius has prompted international concern after it emerged that three people on board have died since the cruise ship departed Argentina in April. Photo: AFP/Getty Images/TNS

WHO says cruise ship hantavirus outbreak ‘not the start of a pandemic’

The cruise ship MV Hondius leaves the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

Passengers on hantavirus-hit cruise ship sway between fear and boredom

A passenger watches as health personnel assist patients off the cruise ship and onto a boat off the port of Praia, Cabo Verde, on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

The captain of the MV Hondius announces the death of the first passenger in April. Photo: Instagram/ruhicenet via Reuters

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The MV Hondius is expected to reach the port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife on Sunday


The MV Hondius is expected to reach the port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife on Sunday.


Spain to repatriate guests as hantavirus-hit cruise ship heads for Canaries

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The MV Hondius is expected to reach the port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife on Sunday

The MV Hondius is expected to reach the port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife on Sunday