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  "path": "/partner/hantavirus-cruise-ship-canary-islands",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-09T11:22:55.000Z",
  "site": "https://nukta.com",
  "tags": [
    "cruise ship",
    "hantavirus",
    "WHO"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nA cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak is heading for Spain's Canary Islands, where most of the nearly 150 people on board will be evacuated and flown home.\n\nThree passengers have died, and six cases have been confirmed, as WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus traveled to Tenerife to help coordinate the response.\n\n#### What is happening with the hantavirus cruise ship?\n\nThe Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is expected to reach waters off Tenerife at dawn Sunday. Regional authorities have refused to allow the vessel to dock, so it will remain offshore while passengers are screened and evacuated between midday Sunday and Monday, the only window health officials say the weather will permit.\n\nThree passengers have died: a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman. The WHO confirmed six cases out of eight suspected ones on Friday, with no suspected cases remaining on board.\n\n#### What type of hantavirus has been confirmed on the ship?\n\nThe Andes virus, the only strain of hantavirus capable of spreading from person to person, has been confirmed among those who tested positive, fueling international concern.\n\nThe WHO has sought to reassure the public, saying the risk of wider spread was \"absolutely low.\" \"This is a dangerous virus, but only to the person who's really infected,\" WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva, adding the outbreak was \"not a new Covid.\"\n\n#### Where did the cruise ship come from and where is it headed?\n\nThe MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde. Three infected passengers had already been evacuated from Cape Verde earlier in the week before the ship set course for the Canary Islands. After the evacuation, the ship will continue on to the Netherlands.\n\nSpanish Health Minister Monica Garcia Gomez said the vessel was expected to arrive between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. GMT Sunday.\n\n#### How will passengers be evacuated from the ship?\n\nAfter being examined on board, passengers will be taken on smaller boats and transferred by bus to the airport, where they will be flown to their home countries, including the United States, Britain, and France.\n\nSpanish authorities confirmed that neither the luggage nor the body of any deceased passenger will be disembarked in the Canary Islands. Both will remain on board with part of the crew for the onward journey to the Netherlands.\n\n#### How are health authorities tracking potential spread of hantavirus?\n\nHealth authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already disembarked and anyone who may have come into contact with them. A KLM flight attendant who came into contact with an infected passenger tested negative for hantavirus, the WHO said Friday.\n\nA woman on a flight from Johannesburg to the Netherlands who had been seated two rows behind an infected passenger, who later died in a Johannesburg hospital, is being tested for hantavirus after developing symptoms. She is in isolation in a hospital in eastern Spain.\n\nTwo Singapore residents who had been on the ship tested negative but would remain in quarantine. British health authorities also said Friday there was a suspected case on Tristan da Cunha, one of the world's most isolated settlements, with around 220 residents.\n\n#### How are locals in the Canary Islands responding?\n\nResidents near the port of Granadilla de Abona told AFP they were uneasy about the ship's arrival. \"After Covid, anything involving a virus makes people afraid,\" one local said.\n\nProvincial health official Juan Petrina said there was an \"almost zero chance\" the Dutch man linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia, based on the virus's incubation period and other factors.\n\nSpanish health and interior ministers were due to brief the public in Madrid before Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met with the WHO chief, with both then expected to travel to the Canary Islands.",
  "title": "Canary Islands brace for arrival of hantavirus-hit cruise ship"
}