Spain’s Canary Islands brace for incoming hantavirus cruise ship | Health Issues

The 140 passengers and crew on board the MV Hondius will be ‘isolated’ and evacuated, Spanish officials have said.

A cruise ship hit by the hantavirus is en route to Spain’s Canary Islands, where it plans to disembark 140 passengers and crew for evacuation after weeks at sea.

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, on which at least eight people fell ill, is due to go to sea. The Spanish island of Tenerifeoff the coast of West Africa, early Sunday morning.

Passengers will be taken to “remote, confined areas,” said the head of Spain’s emergency services, Virginia Barcones. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will be on the island to help control migration, according to Spanish ministry sources cited by AFP.

While three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are known to be infected and hantavirus, the ship’s operator Oceanwide Expeditions said Friday that there were no people with possible symptoms on the ship.

The WHO considers the risk to most people to be low risk.

“This is not a new COVID,” said WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier. “The virus is not contagious so it easily jumps from person to person.”

Hantavirus is usually spread by inhaling the feces of infected rodents and is not easily transmitted between humans. But the Andes virus that was found on the cruise ship can spread between people in some cases. Symptoms usually appear one to eight weeks after exposure.

Health officials on four continents were tracking and monitoring more than a dozen people who disembarked before the deadly outbreak first appeared on May 2. They are also scrambling to find others who may have been in contact.

‘We cannot be a European laboratory’

Some Spanish residents have complained that the arrival of the passengers could pose a health risk to the island and that there are not enough measures to deal with them.

Iustitia Europa, an anti-establishment group in Spain that rose to prominence in the wake of the COVID-19 restrictions, called for the MV Hondius to be banned from reaching Spanish shores.

“The Canary Islands cannot be a European laboratory… We want transparency, responsibility, and protection for the Spanish people to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past,” the group wrote on X.

Alicia Rodriguez, a bar owner in Tenerife, said the incoming train “has been the talk of the town” for days. “I think on some level we should be concerned, but hopefully they’ll try to deal with things in a more aggressive way,” He told Al Jazeera.

Several Spanish travelers told the Associated Press they were worried they would be discriminated against on land. “We are afraid of all the news that is coming out, and the way people have received us,” said one of the passengers who refused to give their name.

“You see what’s out there and you realize you’re entering the eye of a hurricane,” said one passenger, who also asked not to be named. “Many people forget that there are more than 140 people here. To be honest, there are 140 people.”

When the train reaches Tenerife, passengers are transferred from small boats to buses until their return flights are ready to pick them up, Spanish officials said. They will be transported in vehicles away from security guards, officials added, with parts of the airport they were traveling through closed.