afp | Following the hantavirus outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship “Hondius,” the World Health Organization (WHO) has made evacuating the remaining roughly 150 people aboard a top priority. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived in Spain on Saturday to supervise a safe evacuation. According to the WHO, infection with the Andes virus strain, the one capable of human-to-human transmission, has now been confirmed in six of eight suspected cases. Among the three fatalities is a German woman.
“I have arrived in Spain, where I will participate in a mission with senior government officials to Tenerife to oversee the safe disembarkation of the passengers, crew members, and health experts aboard the cruise ship ‘MV Hondius,’” Tedros said on Saturday on the online platform X. Around 5:00 p.m. the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez plans to welcome the WHO chief at his office in Madrid.
According to Spanish government sources, Tedros will afterward travel with Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Health Minister Mónica García Gómez to a command center on the Canary Islands to ensure coordination between the involved governments and the “implementation of the planned surveillance and response protocols.”
Anchoring off the Island
The Dutch ship is set to arrive in Tenerife in the early hours of Sunday, according to Spanish Health Minister García Gómez. At the request of local authorities, the Hondius will not enter the small Granadilla de Abona industrial port for safety reasons, but will instead anchor off the Canarian island. The majority of the approximately 150 people aboard are to be brought ashore from there on a smaller vessel and then transported by bus to Tenerife South Airport and flown to their home countries.
Interior Minister Grande-Marlaska said at a press conference on Saturday that return flights to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States were already planned. For ship occupants who are not from the EU and whose countries cannot arrange return flights, Spain is coordinating a “plan” for their repatriation.
According to the German Foreign Office in Berlin, a “mid single-digit” number of German citizens are aboard. According to an earlier list from the Hondius operator Oceanwide Expeditions, there are six living Germans as well as the body of the German fatality. Health Minister García Gómez said that both the luggage and the body of the German victim would remain aboard. The ship would then proceed to the Netherlands with part of the crew.
Port Workers Demonstrate
Port workers in Granadilla de Abona demonstrated on Friday against the planned arrival of the cruise ship. Residents of the port town who AFP spoke to in recent days also expressed “concern” about the impending arrival of the Hondius. On Friday the WHO said that eight hantavirus cases had been reported to date, including three deaths. “Six cases have been laboratory-confirmed as hantavirus infections,” the statement added.
All six infections are attributed to the Andes virus strain, the only hantavirus strain known to be transmittable from person to person. The pathogen can cause severe respiratory illness. In the two additional suspected cases, infection was “likely,” the WHO said. There are no further suspected cases aboard the cruise ship according to the WHO.
According to the WHO, four people are currently in hospital—“one in intensive care in Johannesburg, South Africa, two in different hospitals in the Netherlands, and one more in Zurich, Switzerland,” the WHO said.
Monitoring in Düsseldorf
A woman admitted to the University Hospital Düsseldorf has tested negative for the virus and thus “no longer counts as a case.” She will, however, continue to be monitored. The University Hospital Düsseldorf had said on Friday that this is necessary because “the incubation period of the pathogen is highly variable and the onset of symptoms can take several weeks.”
The WHO classified the risk for the general population as low. It said it would “continue to monitor the epidemiological situation and continuously update the risk assessment.” “The risk for passengers and crew on the ship is considered moderate,” the statement added.
