Well being employees in protecting gear arrive to evacuate sufferers from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, Could 6, 2026.
Misper Apawu/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Misper Apawu/AP
MADRID — Spanish authorities on Friday had been making ready to obtain greater than 140 passengers and crew members on board a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship headed for the Canary Islands, the place well being officers have mentioned they’ll carry out cautious evacuations.
The vessel is predicted to achieve the Spanish island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, on Saturday or Sunday.
“They will arrive at a completely isolated, cordoned-off area,” mentioned Virginia Barcones, Spain’s head of emergency providers, on Thursday.
The MV Hondius is a Dutch-flagged vessel and Dutch officers mentioned Friday they had been additionally in shut contact with the ship’s proprietor and authorities of nations whose residents are on board.
The US has agreed to ship a airplane to the Canary Islands to repatriate its 17 residents from the cruise ship, Barcones mentioned. The British authorities additionally mentioned it can constitution a airplane to evacuate the almost two dozen British residents onboard.
At the least three passengers have died, and a number of other different individuals are sick. The World Well being Group considers the chance to the broader public from the outbreak as low.
Hantavirus is normally unfold by the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and is not simply transmitted between folks. Signs normally present between one and eight weeks after publicity.
Not one of the remaining passengers or crew on the ship is presently symptomatic, the Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions cruise ship firm mentioned Thursday.
International locations scramble to trace passengers who disembarked
Well being authorities throughout 4 continents had been persevering with to trace down and monitor passengers who disembarked the ship earlier than the lethal outbreak was detected. They’re additionally attempting to hint others who might have come into contact with them since then.
On April 24, almost two weeks after the primary passenger had died on board, greater than two dozen folks from at the least 12 completely different international locations left the ship with out contact tracing, the ship’s operator and Dutch officers mentioned Thursday.
It wasn’t till Could 2 that well being authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the World Well being Group mentioned.
The WHO confirmed Friday {that a} flight attendant on a airplane briefly boarded by an contaminated cruise passenger in South Africa had examined unfavorable for hantavirus.
The KLM flight attendant was engaged on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25 and had later fallen unwell. She was taken to an isolation ward at an Amsterdam hospital on Thursday.
The cruise passenger, a Dutch girl whose husband died on the ship, was too unwell to take the worldwide flight to Europe and was taken off the airplane in Johannesburg, the place she died.
The Dutch public well being service is presently endeavor contract tracing on passengers from the flight who had contact with the unwell girl earlier than she left the airplane.
On Friday, U.Ok. well being authorities mentioned a 3rd British nationwide is suspected to have the hantavirus.
The U.Ok. Well being Safety Company mentioned the suspected case is on Tristan da Cunha, a distant British abroad territory within the south Atlantic the place the ship stopped in April.
There was no phrase on the individual’s situation.
Two different Britons who had been on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus. One is hospitalized within the Netherlands and the opposite in South Africa.
Authorities in South Africa are working to hint contacts of any passengers who beforehand bought off the ship. They’ve centered primarily on an April 25 flight from the distant island of St. Helena within the South Atlantic to Johannesburg, the day after passengers disembarked on the island.
