The head of the World Health Organization will go to the Spanish island of Tenerife on Saturday to help coordinate the evacuation of passengers affected by the hantavirus, Spanish ministry sources said.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will accompany Spain’s health and interior ministers to a command post there “to ensure coordination between administrations, health control and the application of planned surveillance and response protocols,” the sources said.
Spanish authorities have said the ship will dock in Tenerife and will not be allowed to dock, to avoid any contact with the public. The location will be the port of Granadilla, isolated in an industrial park. Passengers will be transported ashore by a smaller vessel and then bused to the airport, which is only 15 minutes away.
The evacuation should take place between Sunday and Monday due to possible adverse weather conditions afterwards, the Canary Islands regional government said.
Dockers in Tenerife protested on Friday against the ship’s arrival.
Hantavirus ship causes political storm in Spain
MADRID – A political clash has erupted between the central government of Spain and the Canary Islands…
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Three passengers from the MV Hondius – a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman – have died, while others have contracted the rare disease, which is usually spread among rodents.
The only type of hantavirus that can be transmitted from person to person – the Andes virus – has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, prompting international concern.
The Dutch-flagged ship, which has around 150 people on board, is expected to arrive on the Spanish Canary island of Tenerife on Sunday. Special flights will then take the passengers to their countries of origin.
Earlier on Friday, the WHO said the hantavirus outbreak posed minimal risk to the general public.
“This is a dangerous virus, but only for the person who is truly infected, and the risk to the general population remains absolutely low,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters.
A photo was emerging from the MV Hondius where “even those who have been in separate cabins do not appear to be both infected in some cases”, when one has become ill, he added.
“The virus is not contagious enough to be easily spread from person to person,” he said.
The WHO said on Friday that there were six confirmed out of eight suspected cases of the virus so far. There are no suspected cases left on the ship.
Negative KLM stewardess
A flight attendant at the Dutch airline KLM, who came into contact with an infected passenger from the cruise ship and later developed mild symptoms, tested negative for hantavirus, the WHO said on Friday.
The passenger – the wife of the first person to die in the explosion – had been briefly on a plane leaving Johannesburg for the Netherlands on April 25, but was ejected before take off.
She died the next day in a Johannesburg hospital.
Spanish authorities said a woman on that flight was being tested for hantavirus after showing symptoms at home in eastern Spain. She is in hospital isolation, Health Secretary Javier Padilla said.
“This is a pretty unlikely case,” he told reporters: someone “two rows behind the person who died with hantavirus.”
Spanish Interior Ministry sources said a South African woman who was also on the flight “is currently asymptomatic in South Africa after staying in Barcelona for a week before returning to her country”.
Two Singaporeans who had been on the ship tested negative for the disease but will remain in quarantine, city-state authorities said on Friday.
Relief on board
MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde.
Three suspected cases, including two crew members who later tested positive, were evacuated from Cape Verde to the Netherlands.
The third person tested negative, German authorities said Friday, but will remain under observation.
Provincial health official Juan Petrina said there was an “almost zero chance” that the Dutchman linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia based on the incubation period of the virus, among other factors.
YouTuber Kasem Ibn Hattuta, who is traveling on the Hondius, said passengers had been assured that doctors had joined the ship.
“We finally left Cape Verde, which was a relief for everyone on board, especially knowing that our sick colleagues are finally getting the medical attention they need,” he said in a statement.
Everyone was in high spirits, he added: “People are smiling and taking the situation in stride.”
People wore masks inside and kept their distance from others, he said.
Repatriation plans
The United States said Friday it was arranging an evacuation flight for the Americans on the ship, who would then be sent to a quarantine facility in Nebraska.
The cruise was launched to some remote British islands in the South Atlantic.
British health authorities said on Friday there was a suspected case in Tristan da Cunha, one of the world’s most isolated settlements of about 220 people.
(bms)
