Hantavirus-stricken cruise ship arrives in Tenerife despite protests – as officials prepare to evacuate passengers and fly them home to quarantine

The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship has reached Tenerife, where most of the approximately 150 people on board will be evacuated and sent home to quarantine after weeks at sea, despite protests from frightened islanders.

According to data from maritime tracking service VesselFinder, the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius arrived at the Spanish port of Granadilla accompanied by a Civil Guard ship.

Some of the passengers and crew are expected to be evacuated before the ship, where the hantavirus outbreak caused three deaths, continues its journey to the Netherlands.

Three passengers on board – a Dutch husband and a German woman – died, while others contracted the rare disease, which is usually spread among rodents.

The confirmation of the only type of hantavirus (Andes virus) that can be transmitted from person to person among those who tested positive increased international concern.

“We classify everyone on the ship as high-risk contacts,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said on Saturday.

But he added that the risk to the public and the people of the Canary Islands remained low.

The ship’s arrival comes as the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said the 22 Britons on board would be transferred to an isolation facility at Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral, Merseyside, after being flown back to the UK on a chartered flight.

UKHSA and Foreign Office officials will greet the MV Hondius when it docks in Tenerife and Britons on board will be tested for hantavirus before disembarking.

If people test negative and are asymptomatic, they will be taken directly to a scheduled repatriation flight staffed by medical professionals and equipped with personal protective equipment such as face masks.

Upon returning to the UK, passengers will be placed in a block of accommodation in the Arrowe Park area, away from public areas of the hospital, to undergo clinical assessments and testing as a precautionary measure.

The hospital was used to house British citizens returning from Wuhan, China, in January 2020 at the beginning of the Covid outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that there are currently no passengers showing symptoms on the ship.

There have been six confirmed cases of hantavirus linked to MV Hondius, and four patients are currently in hospital, the UN health agency said.

It added that a total of eight cases, including three deaths, were reported, and a previously suspected case was reclassified after testing negative for hantavirus.

The UKHSA said the eight cases involved three British nationals, two with confirmed hantavirus and the other with suspected hantavirus.

The two confirmed British cases were treated in hospitals in South Africa and the Netherlands, while a third British national also disembarked from the ship on Tristan da Cunha, where they live and are supported by health services on the remote South Atlantic island.

Professor Robin May, UKHSA’s chief scientific officer, said: ‘We continue to work in lockstep with our international partners to ensure the safe repatriation of British nationals from the MV Hondius.

‘The safety and well-being of those on board remains our number one priority. Established infection control measures will be implemented at every step of the journey and passengers will receive full support throughout the journey, including isolation periods.’

Janelle Holmes, chief executive of Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said in a letter to staff: ‘We have been asked to accommodate guests by NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in recognition of how quickly and positively we responded to and supported the repatriation of British nationals from Wuhan and the Diamond Princess prior to the Covid-19 outbreak.

‘We will welcome our guests on Sunday, May 10, 2026, and they will all be screened for symptoms before arriving at the property; Anyone showing symptoms will not be transferred here.

‘If anyone becomes unwell after arrival, they will be quickly transferred to another facility.’

Emergency services in north-west England said they expected passengers to be kept in a ‘managed environment’ for up to 72 hours.

Public health experts will then evaluate whether they can isolate at home or another appropriate location based on their living arrangements.

Britons returning to the UK will self-isolate for 45 days and will not be allowed to travel home by public transport.

A joint statement from NHS England North West, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board, Merseyside Police, North West Ambulance Service and Wirral Council said: ‘Organisations in Cheshire and Merseyside are working closely with colleagues from the UK Health Security Agency and other government bodies to support the repatriation of passengers from the MV Hondius.

‘On arrival they will be taken to a managed setting for clinical assessment and testing, in line with advice from the UK Health Safety Agency. We expect this initial stay to be up to 72 hours.

‘Public health experts will then evaluate whether they can isolate at home or in another suitable location, based on their living arrangements.

‘The risk to the general population remains very low.’

WHO has sought to reassure ‘concerned’ Tenerife residents that they will not encounter passengers of a cruise ship about to dock on hantavirus-hit islands.

In a letter to the people of Tenerife, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he knew residents were ‘concerned’.

He said the virus was “serious” but the outbreak “is not another Covid” and “the current public health risk from hantavirus remains low.”

He added: ‘Spain’s authorities have drawn up a careful, step-by-step plan: passengers will be ferried from the industrial port of Granadilla to the coast in sealed, protected vehicles, along a completely cordoned off corridor, away from residential areas, and sent directly back to their home countries.’

The outbreak was linked to a birdwatching trip two of the passengers took in Argentina before boarding the ship.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who arrived in Spain on Saturday and is expected to supervise the ship evacuation, gave the same assurance and thanked the people of Tenerife for their solidarity.

“I need you to hear me clearly,” Tedros wrote in an open letter to the people of Tenerife on Saturday: “This is not another Covid.”

After arriving in Tenerife, he said he was confident the operation would be successful. “Spain is ready and prepared,” he told reporters.

In the port of Granadilla de Abona, white tents were set up along the quay early Sunday morning and police secured part of the port.

Despite the situation, daily life appeared largely normal, with some people swimming while others shopped at markets or sat on café terraces.

“There are concerns that there might be a danger, but I don’t think people are too worried, to be honest,” said lottery dealer David Parada.

Regional authorities did not allow the ship to dock. Instead, the sea will remain offshore between Sunday and Monday while passengers are screened and evacuated; the only window health officials say the weather will allow.

Cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions previously said ‘all guests and a limited number of crew’ were expected to begin disembarking the ship around 7am.

The Dutch company said, ‘As soon as they get off the plane, they will be immediately transferred to the allocated planes.’

The WHO said on Friday that it had confirmed six of the eight suspected cases. There are no suspicious cases left on the ship.

The MV Hondius is sailing from the Cape Verde Islands, where three infected people were evacuated earlier in the week.

In Madrid, Spain’s health and interior ministers insisted there would be “no contact” with locals and that passengers would be separated “according to their nationality group”.

“All areas through which passengers pass will be closed,” the interior minister said, adding that a maritime exclusion zone would be in force around the ship.

MV Hondius departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean towards the Cape Verde Islands.

Provincial health official Juan Petrina said the chance that the Dutch man linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia was almost zero, based on the incubation period of the virus, among other factors.

Members of the media work at the port of Granadilla de Abona following the arrival of the cruise ship MV Hondius

Health authorities in many countries are tracking passengers who have disembarked and anyone who may have come into contact with them.

A flight attendant on Dutch airline KLM who came into contact with an infected passenger on the cruise ship and later showed mild symptoms tested negative for hantavirus, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The passenger, the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak, had briefly stayed on a flight from Johannesburg to the Netherlands on April 25 but was removed before takeoff.

He died the next day in a hospital in Johannesburg.

Spanish authorities said a woman on that flight was tested for hantavirus and showed symptoms at her home in eastern Spain. Health Minister Javier Padilla said he was in isolation in the hospital.

Two Singapore residents on the ship tested negative for the disease but will remain in quarantine, city-state officials said on Friday.

British health officials also said Friday that a suspected case had been found in Tristan da Cunha, one of the world’s most isolated settlements with about 220 people.