French passenger of hantavirus ship starts showing symptoms on flight home
Hantavirus cruise passengers, including Americans, to be evacuated to their home countries 02:45
A French citizen on a repatriation flight started showing symptoms of hantavirus after being evacuated from the cruise ship hit by the deadly outbreak. The Prime Minister said on Sunday afternoon:. After the ship docked at the port on Sunday morning, passengers began to disembark. Canary Islands of Spain.
Officials have previously said no one on the ship showed symptoms of hantavirus, which is usually transmitted by rodents. Patients involved in the outbreak tested positive for a rare strain that can be transmitted from person to person.
Since the ship’s docking, passengers have been carefully evacuated according to their nationalities and placed on repatriation flights. Spanish citizens first got off the ship, then boarded a plane to Madrid and were taken to the military hospital. French and British passengers were also evacuated.
A Spanish passenger is sprayed with disinfectant by Spanish government officials before boarding the plane after getting off the hantavirus-infected cruise ship MV Hondius at Tenerife airport in Spain’s Canary Islands, Sunday, May 10, 2026. / Credit: AP
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on social media that the French passenger was on a repatriation flight when he started showing symptoms. Lecornu did not provide information on whether the passenger had been tested for hantavirus yet or what the passenger’s symptoms were. He said all five passengers were “immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice” and would be tested.
There at least Nine confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus linked to the onboard outbreak; three fatalities: a Dutch couple and a German woman.
Carrying approximately 150 people from more than 15 countries, including 17 Americans, MV Hondius set out for Granadilla from the Cape Verde Islands earlier this week after Spain agreed to buy the ship.
MV Hondius arrives at Granadilla Port in Tenerife, part of Spain’s Canary Islands, on May 10, 2026. / Credit: Chris McGrath / Getty Images
A complex and careful disembarkation
The ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said all passengers and some of the crew of about 60 would evacuate the ship using launch boats, each carrying a maximum of five to 10 people.
People were then checked for symptoms. Officials said the passengers and crew had no contact with local people in Tenerife before being taken to evacuation flights. A. Video shared by the Spanish defense ministry It shows the inside of a return flight, revealing surfaces wrapped in plastic and crew members wearing protective gear.
The operation in Tenerife was attended by Spain’s ministers of health and interior, as well as the Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr. It is overseen by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Although health officials say the risks from the cruise outbreak remain low to the public, disembarkers and port workers wore face masks, hazmat suits, respirators and other protective gear during the evacuation process.
Once ashore, a core team will pick up supplies and head to Rotterdam, Netherlands, which is expected to take about five days, Oceanwide Expeditions said. According to Spanish authorities, the body of a passenger who died on the ship will also remain on the ship and will be disinfected when the ship arrives in Rotterdam.
A member of the Guardia Civil finishes setting up a tent at the expected pick-up point for passengers arriving from the MV Hondius. / Credit: Chris McGrath / Getty Images
Quarantine protocols
US citizens will be the last evacuation group on Sunday. The CDC said it would send a team of epidemiologists and medical experts to the Canary Islands to “conduct an exposure risk assessment for each American traveler and make recommendations regarding the level of monitoring necessary.”
After being removed from Hondius, the Americans will be flown back to the United States on a plane sent by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services. The medical repatriation flight will land at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Americans will be taken to a special biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
CBS News is tracking a direct flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Tenerife South Airport, just 10 minutes from Granadilla. The US and Spanish governments have not commented on the flight, but a local resident of Tenerife said the island “never” receives direct flights from the US across the Atlantic Ocean.
Workers wearing protective gear arrived after the MV Hondius docked at Granadilla Port in Tenerife, part of Spain’s Canary Islands, on May 10, 2026. / Credit: Chris McGrath / Getty Images
Michael Wadman, medical director of the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said every American will have their own room while quarantining for an indefinite period of time.
Deputy Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. The seven Americans who left the ship had been in the United States for about two weeks and were living across the country, Jay Bhattacharya told CNN’s “State of the Union.” One of the Americans returning home Northern California residentAccording to the Santa Clara Public Health Department.
Each country created its own quarantine plan. British officials said that the British passengers and crew would be hospitalized for observation after being sent home, while 14 Spaniards would be kept in quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid.
In France, Lecornu said he would issue a decree “for the implementation of appropriate isolation measures for close contacts and for the protection of the general population”, in addition to isolating passengers on the repatriation flight.
Officials insist public is at low risk
Hantaviruses are a family of diseases spread from rodents to humans through urine, feces, or saliva, according to the CDC. It may take up to eight weeks after exposure for symptoms to develop.
While WHO says the Andean virus strain, found in Latin America, is the only strain known to be able to transmit the virus through human-to-human contact, Tedros rates the public risk as “low.”
Americans “shouldn’t be worried” about the impending return of cruise passengers who are U.S. citizens, he told CBS News at a Sunday morning briefing and encouraged people to trust health officials.
“This is not another Covid-19 and the risk to the public is low. Therefore, they should not be afraid and panic,” Tedros said. He also said that several years of scientific evaluations of the virus and its behavior, as well as how the virus has behaved so far in this particular outbreak, led to this decision.
Tedros’ assessment was echoed by the acting director of the CDC. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that U.S. travelers being brought home will likely reach the peak of the virus’ incubation cycle this week and be “nearing the end of the window of transmission.”
A Guardia Civil boat is seen in front of the MV Hondius after docking at the Port of Granadilla in Tenerife, part of Spain’s Canary Islands, on May 10, 2026. / Credit: Chris McGrath / Getty Images
epidemic timeline
The source of the epidemic is being investigated. Tedros said that before boarding the ship, the dead Dutch couple – a 70-year-old man and his 69-year-old wife – were believed to have spent weeks traveling in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a birding trip in areas where rodent species known to carry the Andean virus were present.
WHO said the man developed symptoms on April 6 and died on the ship on April 11, but because his symptoms were similar to those of other respiratory viruses, no samples were taken and hantavirus was not suspected at the time.
The ship then arrived on the British continental island of St. When he docked at Helena, his wife came ashore. The WHO said he showed severe symptoms on a flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 25 and died in South Africa the next day. Tests confirmed he had hantavirus.
The German woman showed symptoms on April 28 and died on the ship on May 2, according to the World Health Organization.
Three other patients this week were flown from the ship to the Netherlands for emergency medical care, and a Swiss man who began showing symptoms after disembarking was being treated in Zurich. While a British man was medically evacuated to South Africa, another British citizen who got off the ship was hospitalized on the British island of Tristan da Cunha.
Oceanwide Expeditions said 32 passengers from nearly a dozen countries, including the Dutch woman who died days later, arrived in St. He said he got off the Hondius ship in Helena. American travelers returning to the United States before the outbreak was discovered being watched By state health agencies in California, Georgia, Texas, Virginia and Arizona.
Hondius sailed from Ushuaia, Argentina, on 1 April and sailed from 21 April to 24 April to South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Tristan da Cunha, Gough Island, and then St. It reached many islands in the south Atlantic, including Helena.
The ship then anchored off the coast of Cape Verde, an archipelago off the coast of West Africa, for several days before sailing to the Canary Islands.
