First group of Spanish passengers disembarks from hantavirus-hit cruise ship
The government has begun the evacuation of the first passengers from the MV Hondius ship which arrived in Tenerife this morning, ending a journey that started in southern Argentina on 1 April.
A small group of passengers, all Spanish nationals, is now headed to Tenerife’s port of Granadilla, Spain’s health ministry said.
The passengers will be transported directly from the port in military buses to the airport and evacuated by a Spanish government plane to Madrid where they will taken to hospital and quarantined, officials have said.
Key events
Countries around the world are scrambling to track down and monitor more than two dozen passengers who disembarked the MV Hondius cruise ship before the deadly outbreak was detected.
A 70-year-old Dutch man showed symptoms on 6 April and died five days later but it was attributed to natural causes and raised no alarm.
His body was taken off the ship on 24 April when it docked at the remote southern Atlantic island of St Helena, where other passengers disembarked.
It wasn’t until 2 May that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.
We have a useful explainer on the hantavirus here:
Robyn Vinter
While nobody onboard the vessel has symptoms, passengers and crew have been confined to their cabins in the last few days to help halt the spread of the virus, which is only transmitted through very close contact.
They will each be screened for hantavirus, which can cause flu-like symptoms leading to respiratory arrest and death, in some cases. The 19 passengers and three crew from the UK will be immediately flown from Tenerife to Merseyside for hospital quarantine at Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral.
Those from elsewhere will take separate flights to their home countries, after reassurance from the Spanish government and the World Health Organization (WHO) that they will not come into contact with people in Tenerife.
They are being asked to isolate for 42 days from their point of potential exposure, which for most of the passengers will be many days ago. Authorities have sought to make clear that the virus, though serious, would not result in another pandemic.
However, the director general of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was asked at a press conference in Tenerife late on Saturday night whether allowing passengers to travel all over the world and relying on them to self-isolate with no oversight could cause further outbreaks.
“Based on our assessment, what you have said is not going to happen,” he told the media.
The Spanish health minister, Monica García, has been speaking to reporters at the the port of Granadilla de Abona in Tenerife.
“The last flight of the entire procedure is scheduled for tomorrow, which is the flight to Australia,” she told the press.
The ship’s 14 Spaniards would leave first, followed by a Dutch flight that would also take citizens from Germany, Belgium, Greece and part of the crew, García said.
Separate flights for Canadian, Turkish, French, British, Irish and US citizens were also planned for Sunday, she added.
Hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrives in Tenerife with Spanish passengers to be evacuated first
Good morning, and welcome to our Europe live blog. Spanish health officials have said all the passengers on the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius remain asymptomatic after the vessel arrived in Tenerife on Sunday, almost a month after the first passenger died of the rodent-borne disease on board the ship.
“The anchoring has been a success despite all the difficulties,” the health minister, Mónica García, said after intensive preparations to receive the ship in the port of Granadilla were carried out over recent days.
She confirmed all passengers remain asymptomatic and that the first nationals to be evacuated will be the Spanish ones, according to Spanish newspaper El País.
García said they were undergoing a final medical assessment before their disembarkation and confirmed that all the repatriation flights taking citizens back to their countries will take off by tomorrow.
There were 146 passengers from 20 different nationalities onboard the MV Hondius, where an outbreak has killed three people and caused an international health scare. These countries included the UK, the US, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, the Philippines and Singapore.
Authorities have said the passengers and crew members who will disembark will have no contact with the local population in Tenerife. Health officials continue to stress that the risk of contagion for the general population is low.
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