Spain is preparing a controlled reception for the MV Hondius in Tenerife as governments arrange repatriations and health officials trace potential hantavirus exposures.
Spanish authorities were preparing Friday to receive more than 140 passengers and crew aboard the MV Hondius, a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak and now headed for Spain’s Canary Islands for controlled evacuations.
The vessel is expected to reach Tenerife on Saturday or Sunday after being anchored near Cape Verde. Health officials are trying to manage the arrival while limiting contact with the public, as international authorities trace people who left the ship earlier in the voyage.
Virginia Barcones, Spain’s head of emergency services, said Thursday that the passengers and crew would arrive at “a completely isolated, cordoned-off area.” Spain is coordinating with other governments on evacuation plans for their citizens.
The United States plans to send a plane to repatriate 17 Americans, and the British government has said it will charter a flight for nearly two dozen people. Canadian consular officials are also traveling to meet four Canadians who remain on board.
Spain’s Health Minister Mónica García said everyone on the ship will receive a medical assessment after arrival in Tenerife. Foreign nationals who are cleared to travel are expected to be repatriated, while Spaniards will be sent to a defense hospital in Madrid to quarantine. García said the operation would avoid contact with Canary Islands residents and pose no risk to them.
The plan has drawn concern from Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo, who told Spanish radio he opposed the ship entering the islands and said local officials had not been given enough information.
Three people who were on or had traveled from the ship have died: a Dutch couple and a German national. Officials have not confirmed all of the deaths as hantavirus cases, and testing and case counts have continued to evolve as health agencies investigate.
The BBC cited the World Health Organization’s latest update as identifying eight hantavirus cases among people who had been on the ship, three confirmed and five suspected. CBC reported that four confirmed infections were being treated in hospitals in the Netherlands, South Africa and Switzerland. The ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said Thursday that none of the remaining passengers or crew on board was symptomatic.
Three people were medically evacuated earlier from the ship, including British, Dutch and German evacuees. Oceanwide said two people in serious condition had arrived in the Netherlands for treatment, while a third passenger in stable condition was on an evacuation flight that had been delayed.
Health authorities in several countries are monitoring passengers who disembarked before the outbreak was detected. More than two dozen people from at least 12 countries left the ship when it docked at St. Helena on April 24, according to Oceanwide and Dutch officials cited by CBC. Authorities in Ontario and Quebec have said three Canadians are isolating at home after possible exposure, and two U.S. states told the BBC they were monitoring three returning passengers who were not showing symptoms.
Hantavirus usually spreads through contact with infected rodents. In this outbreak, officials have identified the Andes strain, which the WHO says is the only hantavirus strain in which human-to-human transmission has been detected. Health experts have stressed that the wider public risk remains low and that transmission concerns center on close contact, not casual distance.
The immediate next step is the ship’s arrival in Tenerife, where Spanish officials plan to assess those aboard, separate them from the public and move eligible passengers into repatriation or quarantine arrangements.
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