MADRID — Spanish authorities were getting ready on Friday to welcome over 140 passengers and crew from a cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak as it headed toward the Canary Islands. Health officials have outlined plans for a careful evacuation process.
The ship is scheduled to dock on Sunday at the Spanish island of Tenerife, located off the West African coast. Passengers will be moved to a “completely isolated, cordoned-off area,” according to Virginia Barcones, head of Spain’s emergency services.
The U.S. and the U.K. have both committed to sending aircraft to evacuate their nationals from the ship.
Although three people have died from the hantavirus and five passengers who disembarked are confirmed to be infected, Oceanwide Expeditions, the cruise operator, stated Thursday that there are no symptomatic individuals on board the MV Hondius, a Dutch-flagged vessel.
The World Health Organization (WHO) assesses the risk to the general public as low.
On Friday, the WHO reported that a flight attendant, who had been on a plane briefly boarded by an infected cruise passenger, tested negative for hantavirus. Her potential infection had raised concerns about the virus’s transmissibility.
The negative test result of the flight attendant should help alleviate public fears, stated Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesman. “The risk remains absolutely low,” he added. “This is not a new COVID.”
Hantavirus typically spreads through the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. However, the Andes virus associated with this outbreak may occasionally spread between people. Symptoms can appear from one to eight weeks post-exposure.
Health officials across four continents are actively tracing and monitoring over two dozen passengers who left the ship before the outbreak was discovered. They are also working to identify others who might have been in contact with these passengers.
Countries scramble to track passengers who disembarked
On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first on-board death, more than two dozen people from at least 12 countries disembarked from the ship without undergoing contact tracing, according to Dutch officials and the ship’s operator on Thursday.
Health authorities did not confirm a hantavirus case in a ship passenger until May 2, said the WHO.
The KLM flight attendant, who later tested negative for the virus, was on a flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25 and fell ill afterward. She was admitted to an isolation ward in an Amsterdam hospital on Thursday.
A cruise passenger briefly on that flight, a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship, was too unwell to continue the international flight to Europe and was removed from the plane in Johannesburg, where she passed away.
The Dutch public health service is presently conducting contact tracing for passengers who interacted with the ill woman during the flight.
On Friday, British health authorities reported that a third British national who had been on the ship is suspected of having hantavirus. The U.K. Health Security Agency mentioned that this individual is on Tristan da Cunha, a remote British territory in the South Atlantic where the ship stopped in April. There was no update on this person’s condition.
Spanish health officials reported Friday that a woman in Alicante province is exhibiting symptoms consistent with a hantavirus infection and is undergoing testing.
She had been on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after being on the cruise ship, Secretary of State for Health Javier Padilla informed reporters.
Two other Britons from the ship have confirmed infections. One is hospitalized in the Netherlands, while the other is in South Africa.
Authorities in South Africa are tracing contacts of passengers who disembarked earlier. Their efforts mainly focus on an April 25 flight from St. Helena to Johannesburg, occurring one day after some passengers left the island.
Spanish authorities detail disembarkation plans
Officials reassured the Canary Islands’ residents about limited exposure risks to the virus among the general public.
Spanish officials explained that once the ship docks in Tenerife, passengers will be moved to buses by small boats only after their repatriation flights are prepared. Passengers will travel in isolated, guarded vehicles, and the airport sections they use will be closed off.
Spain has asked for medically equipped aircraft in case of symptomatic passengers, said Barcones, to avoid public contact. The availability of such aircraft remains uncertain.
The U.S. will send a plane to repatriate the 17 Americans on board. These passengers will be quarantined at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine, as per the hospital statement.
The Omaha unit previously treated Ebola and early COVID-19 patients. Nebraska Medicine is among a few U.S. hospitals with specialized units for severe infectious diseases.
“We are prepared for situations exactly like this,” said Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, in a statement on Friday.
The British government also announced plans to charter a plane for nearly two dozen British nationals on the ship.
— Suman Naishadham
Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio in Berlin and Molly Quell in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
