Spain Evacuates MV Hondius Passengers in Tenerife After Hantavirus Outbreak

Passengers began disembarking from the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius in Tenerife, Spain, shortly after it arrived near the port of Granadilla on Sunday morning.

“The cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak has arrived near the Port of Granadilla in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and Spain has begun the process of disembarking passengers”

Al Jazeera

NBC News said the first plane carrying 14 Spanish passengers departed Tenerife for Madrid shortly afterward, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu told reporters, "The risk to the public is low."

Al Jazeera

The BBC reported that Spain’s health minister Mónica García said all passengers on board were still asymptomatic as the first evacuation took place, with passengers seen in white medical face masks.

CBS News said the CDC was sending a team of epidemiologists and medical professionals to the Canary Islands to "conduct an exposure risk assessment for each American passenger" as the 17 Americans still aboard were flown back to the U.S. for quarantine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

The evacuation plan described by CBS News included Spanish passengers disembarking first, followed by a Netherlands-bound flight that would include Germans, Belgians, Greeks and part of the crew, with the final flight set for Monday to Australia.

WHO said the MV Hondius had six passengers with confirmed cases of hantavirus and two with suspected cases, and NBC News reported that three of those people have died, including two who died while aboard the ship.

CBS News said there were nine confirmed or suspected cases linked to the outbreak on the ship, including three fatalities: a Dutch couple and a German woman, and it added that health officials said nobody left on board was showing symptoms of hantavirus so far.

Al-Jazeera Net

NBC News reported that Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said the WHO is recommending "active monitoring and follow-up" for all passengers and crew for 42 days from their "last point of exposure" to a confirmed case.

The BBC said Tedros praised the authorities for their "solid and effective response" to the outbreak, which it linked to a landfill site in the southernmost tip of Argentina popular with birdwatchers.

CBS News also said hantaviruses can take up to eight weeks after contact for symptoms to develop, and it quoted acting CDC director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya saying, "Hantavirus is not spread by people without symptoms" and that the risk to the American public is very low.

The WHO and other health officials emphasized that the Andes strain is the only one known to be able to transmit the virus through human-to-human contact, and CBS News said Tedros assessed the public risk as "low," an assessment echoed by acting CDC director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

“Spain starts evacuating virus-hit cruise ship in Tenerife Spain is evacuating passengers from a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship anchored near Tenerife in the Canary Islands”

BBC

NBC News reported that passengers will be kept cordoned off from the public ahead of their repatriation flights, and it said Van Kerkhove described the operation as keeping passengers spaced apart so that even asymptomatic travelers do not present additional new risk to each other.

Al Jazeera said the ship had left for Tenerife on Wednesday from the coast of Cape Verde after the WHO and the European Union asked Spain to manage the evacuation, and it reported that the WHO said at least eight people had fallen ill including three who died.

CBS News said the source of the outbreak remains under investigation, but it reported that Tedros said the Dutch couple who died were believed to have spent weeks traveling through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a bird-watching trip in areas where the species of rodent known to carry the Andes virus is present.

India Today identified Dutch ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, 70, and his wife Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, as linked to the outbreak, and it said Leo died aboard the ship on April 11 while Mirjam disembarked at Saint Helena and died in South Africa the following day.