MADRID (AP) – Spanish officials announced on Friday plans to receive over 140 passengers and crew members from a cruise ship en route to the Canary Islands that has reported cases of hantavirus. Health authorities stated they would conduct a careful evacuation.
The vessel is expected to dock at Tenerife, a Spanish island off West Africa, on Sunday. According to Virginia Balcones, Spain’s emergency services chief, passengers will first be taken to a “totally isolated and locked-down area.”
The U.S. and the U.K. have arranged to send planes to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ships.
Since the outbreak began, three individuals have died, and five passengers who left the vessel have been confirmed infected with hantavirus. However, Oceanwide Expeditions, the cruise line, reported on Friday that no one aboard the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius appears to display symptoms of potential infection.
The World Health Organization has assessed the risk to the general population from this outbreak as low.
On Friday, the WHO reported that a flight attendant who had contact with an infected cruise passenger tested negative for hantavirus. This negative result alleviated concerns about the virus’s contagiousness.
Christian Lindmeyer, a WHO spokesperson, stated that the flight attendant’s negative result should reduce public worry, emphasizing, “The risk is still completely low. This is not a new coronavirus.”
Typically, hantavirus is spread through inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted among humans. Yet, in rare cases, the Andes virus linked to this outbreak could be transmitted between people. Symptoms generally manifest one to eight weeks after exposure.
Health officials across four continents are monitoring over 20 passengers who left the ship before the outbreak was confirmed, and they are also attempting to trace anyone who might have come into contact with them.
In interviews, two Spanish passengers, who chose to remain anonymous to avoid potential backlash, described their time on the ship as relatively calm despite the situation. While some are engaging in birdwatching, others are gathering to read or attend lectures while adhering to mask-wearing and social distancing. Both expressed concern over how they would be received upon returning to Spain and their home countries.
“We’re worried about how people will react, how they’ll look at us,” one passenger shared. “I mean, we are just ordinary people. It’s said this is a luxury cruise for the rich, but that’s far from the truth. We’re really scared about this.”
Authorities have worked to reassure the public that the risk of exposure for the general population in the Canary Islands remains low.
Once the ship docks in Tenerife, passengers will be moved in small boats to buses when flights for repatriation are prepared. Travel arrangements will involve isolated and secured vehicles, with officials noting that the airport area they will pass through will be sealed off.
More than 20 passengers left the ship without proper contact tracing on April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger’s death on board, as confirmed by Dutch authorities and the ship’s operator.
According to the WHO, the first confirmed case of hantavirus among passengers was identified on May 2.
The KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight attendant, who tested negative for the virus, had been operating a flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25 but later fell ill.
A cruise passenger, a Dutch woman who had lost her husband on board, was too unwell to board a flight to Europe and disembarked in Johannesburg, where she subsequently died.
Dutch health authorities are currently tracing passengers who may have been in contact with her before her departure from the plane.
On Friday, British health authorities confirmed that a third British passenger from the ship is suspected to have hantavirus. The Health and Safety Executive in the U.K. reported that the individual was in Tristan da Cunha, a remote British territory in the South Atlantic where the ship made a stop in April, though no specific details about their condition were provided.
In Spain, authorities reported a woman in Alicante displaying symptoms consistent with hantavirus and undergoing testing. Health Secretary Javier Padilla informed reporters that she had been on the same flight as the Dutch woman who passed away in Johannesburg.
Two other British passengers have been confirmed as infected, with one currently hospitalized in the Netherlands and another in South Africa.
Authorities in South Africa are tracing contacts of passengers who had previously disembarked, focusing primarily on an April 25 flight from St. Helena to Johannesburg, a day after some passengers left the island.
Officials in various regions of the U.S. are monitoring a few residents who were on the ship and have since returned home, alongside anyone who may have interacted with the passengers. Currently, no symptoms have been reported.
The United States has agreed to send a plane to repatriate about 17 Americans still on board, with those individuals set to be quarantined at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Officials confirmed that none displayed any symptoms.
Doctors will evaluate the passengers before determining how long the quarantine will last.
The specialized biocontainment and isolation unit in Omaha had previously treated patients with Ebola and initial COVID-19 cases. Nebraska Medicine is one of the few facilities in the U.S. prepared for extremely hazardous infectious diseases.
“We are ready for this kind of situation,” said Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, in a statement.
Meanwhile, the British government announced plans to charter a flight to evacuate approximately 20 British passengers and crew members.
