Passengers leave hantavirus ship, two bound for Belgium

Residents of a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has sparked international alarm began leaving the ship in Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday for repatriation, two of them heading to Belgium.

Passengers dressed in blue medical suits began disembarking the Dutch-flagged ship in smaller boats to reach the port of Granadilla in Tenerife.

The evacuees then boarded a bus for their transfer to Tenerife South airport, where their repatriation flights would depart. The 14 Spaniards on board were supposed to leave first, followed by a Dutch flight that would also take nationals from Germany, Greece, Belgium and part of the crew, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said.

According to Belgian news agency Belgatwo Belgians were on board the ship and will undergo a medical assessment upon arrival in Belgium. If no symptoms are found, they can return home, but must continue to isolate and limit contact with others for several weeks.

Separate flights for Canadian, Turkish, French, British, Irish and American citizens were also scheduled for Sunday.

The last flight to evacuate most of the ship’s nearly 150 passengers and crew will leave for Australia on Monday, before the ship continues to the Netherlands, Garcia said.

International concern

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.
There are no vaccines or specific treatments for hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, where the ship left in April.

But health officials have stressed that the risk to global public health is low and played down comparisons with a repeat of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Regional authorities in the Atlantic archipelago have repeatedly resisted taking the ship, which was only authorized to dock offshore rather than dock in port.

But all the passengers are asymptomatic and underwent a final medical assessment before their disembarkation, Garcia told reporters in Tenerife shortly before the start of the operation.

The Spanish authorities have insisted that there will be no contact with the local population in Tenerife.
AFP reporters in Granadilla saw white tents erected along the quay and that police, some in protective medical suits, had closed off part of the small industrial port.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is accompanying the Spanish officials to oversee the delicate operation.

Regional authorities have warned that it must be completed by Monday, when adverse weather conditions will force the ship to leave.

The only type of hantavirus that can be transmitted from person to person, the Andean virus, has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, prompting international concern.

The WHO said on Friday that it had confirmed six cases out of eight suspected ones. There are no suspected cases left on the ship.

The MV Hondius had arrived in Tenerife early on Sunday morning from Cape Verde, where three infected people had already been evacuated to Europe earlier in the week.

Departed Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde.
WHO believes the first infection occurred before the expedition began, followed by transmission between people on board.

But Argentine provincial health official Juan Petrina has said there was an “almost zero chance” that the Dutchman linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia based on the weeklong incubation period of the virus, among other factors.

Health authorities in several countries have traced passengers who had already disembarked and anyone who may have come into contact with them.

(bms)