WHO head seeks to reassure Tenerife residents ahead of arrival of hantavirus cruise ship

TENERIFE, Spain (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization sought Saturday to reassure worried residents of the Spanish island of Tenerife that they are not in danger from the planned arrival of a hantavirus-hit cruise ship, sending them a direct message.

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, with more than 140 passengers and crew on board, is heading to Spain’s Canary Islands, off the coast of West Africa, and is expected to arrive on the island of Tenerife in the early hours of Sunday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, will visit the island on Saturday to coordinate the landing. passengers and certain crew members.

Some island residents said they did not want the ship to dock there, fearing transmission of the virus. On board the cruise ship, some Spanish passengers have expressed concern about how they will be received once ashore.

“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘epidemic’ and watch a ship sail towards your shores, memories arise that none of us have completely put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I am not dismissing it for a single moment,” Tedros said in a direct message to the people of Tenerife.

“But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said it unequivocally, and I’m telling you again now,” he added.

Three people have died since the outbreak and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus, a virus that can cause a life-threatening illness.

Hantavirus is usually spread by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak could, in rare cases, spread between people. Symptoms usually appear between one and eight weeks after exposure.

The WHO, Spanish authorities and cruise line Oceanwide said on Saturday that no one on board the Hondius was currently showing symptoms of the virus.

“WHO continues to actively monitor the situation, coordinate support and next steps and will keep Member States and the public informed accordingly. So far, the risk to the population of the Canary Islands and the world remains low,” Tedros said earlier on X.

Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said passengers and some crew members would disembark in Tenerife under strict health protocols.

Everyone disembarking will first be medically screened to ensure they have no symptoms, while people will only be removed from the ship if a flight is already in Tenerife waiting to take them off the island, Garcia told a news conference in Madrid. There are currently people of more than 20 different nationalities on board.

The United States and the United Kingdom agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ship.

Those who disembark will not take any luggage with them, Garcia said, and will be allowed to disembark with only a small carry-on bag containing essential items, a cell phone, charger and documents.

Some crew members, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will not disembark, Garcia said. They will remain on board while the Hondius heads to the Netherlands, where it will be disinfected, the minister added.

All Spanish passengers will be transferred to a medical facility and quarantined, she said. Oceanwide listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.

According to a letter sent to Parliament on Friday evening by the Dutch Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Health, Spain has activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to have a medical evacuation plane equipped for serious infectious diseases on standby.

If anyone becomes ill, doctors on board the ship will notify Spanish authorities and the evacuation plane “will be sent to Tenerife so that the sick person can be quickly airlifted to the European continent.”

The Dutch government will work with Spanish authorities and the shipping company to arrange the repatriation of Dutch passengers and crew as soon as possible after their arrival in Tenerife, subject to medical conditions and advice from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, the letter said. People without symptoms will be quarantined at home for six weeks and will be monitored by local health departments.

As the ship flies the Dutch flag, the Netherlands can also temporarily accommodate people of other nationalities and monitor them in quarantine, the statement said.

Health authorities on four continents were tracking and monitoring more than two dozen disembarking passengers before the deadly outbreak was detected. They also worked to trace other people who may have come into contact with them.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger on board died, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch authorities and the ship’s operator said.

It was not until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.

On Friday, the WHO said a flight attendant on a plane briefly boarded by an infected cruise passenger tested negative for hantavirus. His possible infection had raised concerns about the potential transmissibility of the virus.

The KLM flight attendant was working on a plane from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25 and subsequently fell ill.

The cruise passenger briefly on board that flight – a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship – was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe and was taken to Johannesburg, where she died.

Becatoros reported from Sparta, Greece. Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.