Spanish authorities prepare for arrival of hantavirus-stricken cruise ship | Hantavirus

Spanish authorities are finalizing preparations for the arrival of the MV Hondius this weekend and say an “unprecedented operation” is underway to collect, assess and repatriate 149 passengers and crew from the cruise ship who have contracted hantavirus.

The Dutch-flagged ship, heading from Argentina to the Cape Verde Islands, is expected to arrive off the coast of Tenerife, the Canary Islands, at noon on Sunday.

Following negotiations between the Spanish government and the archipelago’s regional authorities, MV Hondius will remain anchored in the port of Granadilla and will not dock in Tenerife. Passengers will be evaluated on board and will not have any contact with the local population while they are taken off the ship for repatriation or, if there are 14 Spanish nationals on board, transferred to a military hospital in Madrid for quarantine.

“This is an unprecedented operation in response to an international health alert covering 23 countries,” Spanish health minister Mónica García told Spain’s state radio broadcaster RNE on Friday morning.

“We are coordinating this from Spain, and the World Health Organization has entrusted this operation to Spain, which, as I said before, is unprecedented. We will do what we have to do, that is, we will work and provide the necessary health and logistics management.”

García confirmed that non-Spanish citizens who do not require immediate medical attention will be evacuated to their home countries even if they show symptoms of hantavirus, which killed three people on the ship.

“If they are showing symptoms but do not need immediate medical attention, they will be evacuated to their home country with relevant healthcare professionals,” he said.

“International protocols and all strict measures of health prevention will be observed. The protocol is based on the premise that no one needs urgent medical attention. And we think that this will not be the case because everyone was asymptomatic when leaving Cape Verde and they have been on the boat for days, which makes us think that the risk of infection is decreasing day by day.”

The risk posed by that strain of hantavirus to the public is minimal as it spreads only through “very close contact”, the WHO said on Friday. To date, the organization has recorded five confirmed cases and three suspected cases.

“This is a dangerous virus, but only for the person actually infected, and the risk to the general population remains absolutely low,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said at a news conference in Geneva.

Even people staying in the same cabin as an infected person on the MV Hondius “in some cases neither appeared to be infected,” he said.

The disease “does not spread anything close to the way Covid spreads,” Lindmeier said. He added that contact tracing is effective because it “tracks down those who have been in close contact.”

Britain and the USA are among the countries that have agreed to send planes to Tenerife to repatriate their citizens. Health authorities on four continents are scrambling to track and trace passengers who left the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. They are also trying to trace others who may have contacted them since then.

More than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing on April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger died on the ship, the ship’s operator and Dutch officials said Thursday. Health authorities did not confirm a case of hantavirus in a passenger on the MV Hondius until May 2, according to the World Health Organization.

The impending arrival of the cruise ship has caused serious anxiety in Tenerife. Fernando Clavijo, the regional president of the Canary Islands, objected to the ship coming to the port of Granadilla and convinced the central government that the ship should remain at anchor. Inside Interview with Spanish newspaper ABC He said on Friday that Spain had no legal obligation to take the ship and that it had to dock at a Cape Verde port where it had not been granted docking permission.

“We continue to maintain that Spain has no legal obligation to take this ship and that the operation currently carried out here could be perfectly organized in Cape Verde,” he said. “We still maintain that this problem could have been resolved sooner without the need for a three- or four-day trip.”

Speaking later on Friday, Clavijo said a plan had been devised to minimize the time and contact evacuated passengers would spend in Tenerife. He added that foreign nationals will be taken off the ship and directly onto waiting planes. “We know for sure that no one will disembark unless their plane is waiting on the runway,” he said.

The municipal council of Granadilla de Abona, where the port of Granadilla is located, also objected to the central government’s decision.

“Granadilla de Abona is a dedicated and supportive municipality, ready to cooperate in any health emergency,” the statement said. “However… decisions that directly affect their municipality cannot be made unilaterally or without the participation of local government. The willingness to cooperate, especially when it comes to the safety and well-being of our residents, must be accompanied by sound health criteria and appropriate planning.”