Hantavirus cruise ship passengers will disembark in Tenerife and return to their home countries

The cruise ship at the center of the deadly hantavirus outbreak is expected to arrive in Tenerife, part of Spain’s Canary Islands, early Sunday morning to allow its passengers to disembark, Spanish officials said.

Spanish passengers on the ship, the MV Hondius, will disembark first, the country’s Health Minister Mónica García said during a joint press conference with Spain’s Interior Minister on Saturday.

Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United States will send planes to evacuate passengers from their countries, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.

The European Union will send two planes to pick up passengers from other European countries and the Netherlands will evacuate non-European citizens whose countries cannot send planes, he said.

“Spain can assure the whole world that the matter will be handled properly and that there will be no further contact beyond what has already happened on the ship,” Ms García said.

Once all passengers have left the ship, the Hondius will head to the Netherlands for disinfection, Mr. Grande-Marlaska said.

According to operator Oceanwide Expeditions, none of the 147 people currently on board the ship are symptomatic, the World Health Organization said.

Once the Hondius arrives in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, passengers will be taken ashore in sealed and guarded vehicles through a corridor closed to the public in the port of Granadilla, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said Saturday in a letter addressed directly to “the people of Tenerife.”

The passengers would then be repatriated to their home countries, he said.

Health workers have assessed each passenger’s level of exposure and the risk to the general public remains low, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said during a briefing on Saturday.

Any passengers who showed symptoms would be put on a separate plane and flown to the Netherlands for treatment, she said.

Dr. Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he would be in Tenerife to personally oversee the operation and pay his respects to “an island that responded to a difficult situation with grace, solidarity and compassion.”

He assured residents that they had little to fear.

“This is not another Covid,” he said.

The Hondius left Argentina on April 1 with 114 passengers and 61 crew members. According to the WHO, three passengers have now died, one of whom was confirmed to have been infected with the virus

Ms García said on Saturday that a test carried out on a woman hospitalized in Alicante, Spain, who was suspected of having hantavirus, had come back negative.

The woman was on the same plane as one of the three passengers who died and showed mild symptoms, including coughing. A second test will be carried out in 24 hours to confirm the result, Ms García said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seven of the 17 Americans who were on the ship have already returned home.

The agency said Saturday that the remaining U.S. passengers were being evacuated to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Although the center has a quarantine unit, the CDC said passengers would not be quarantined but would be monitored and examined for 42 days, in some cases at their homes, in coordination with local jurisdictions and other government agencies.

Some passengers staying at home may be asked to limit outdoor activities that require long interactions with others, the agency said Saturday.

It was not immediately clear how many U.S. passengers would remain at the medical center in Nebraska and how many would be sent home for monitoring.

All remaining U.S. passengers are asymptomatic and testing them for hantavirus is not recommended, the CDC said. People without symptoms cannot transmit the virus, the authority said.

Investigators in South Africa and Switzerland have confirmed that the hantavirus cases aboard the Hondius are the Andean virus strain, which is found primarily in South America and is the only hantavirus known to spread among humans.

Early symptoms of infection include fever, chills, body aches and headaches. As the disease progresses, shortness of breath and, in severe cases, lung or heart failure can occur.

Scientists around the world have been working to develop treatments and vaccines specifically against hantavirus, some for decades, but without much success.

Lynsey Chutel contributed reporting.