Tension over hantavirus: Evacuation of the Hondius cruise ship begins in Canary Islands

(AFP) About 150 occupants of the cruise ship Hondius, which suffered an outbreak of hantavirus, were being disembarked Sunday, hours after their arrival at the port of Granadilla, on the Spanish island of Tenerife, in an evacuation operation to their countries that will end Monday.

The passengers, dressed in blue protective suits, were descending in small groups from the vessel, which set sail on April 1 from Argentina before suffering the outbreak that killed three of its passengers, and were being taken to the small port in boats, an AFP reporter observed.

The first to leave were the 14 Spaniards, who were taken to Tenerife Sur Airport, 10 minutes away, where an AFP journalist saw them arrive in red buses of the Emergency Military Unit (UME) with the driver's side separated from the passengers by a kind of prophylactic wall.

Upon arrival at the airport, the Spaniards changed into protective suits and were disinfected, before taking off in the plane for Madrid, where they will be sent to a military hospital for quarantine.

The same operation will take place with the other passengers and crew members of other nationalities.

This Sunday there are planned flights to the Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States, Spanish Health Minister Mónica García said at a news conference.

The last flight, to Australia, will leave on Monday, added the minister, who is with other ministers and the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, coordinating and supervising the operation.

Asymptomatic passengers: The protocol

"The operation has started and is going very well. We appreciate also the coordination on the part of Spain, and the E.U. is also here," Ghebreyesus said.

Before starting with the evacuation, medical personnel boarded the cruise ship after arriving in Tenerife in the early hours of the morning to evaluate the passengers, who remain asymptomatic, according to García.

The deployment began at a port in the Atlantic archipelago, with tents of the Civil Guard and the red buses of the UME for the transfers to the airport of the passengers of the Hondius, which sailed on April 1 from Ushuaia, in the far south of Argentina.

The Spanish government has insisted that the operation has "all the guarantees of public health."

The head of the WHO was also emphatic: "I need to be heard clearly: this is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low."

The latest WHO balance sheet records a total of six confirmed cases among eight suspected patients, including a Dutch couple and a German woman who died from this known but rare virus, for which there is neither vaccine nor treatment.

Irritation from Canary Islands government

Once the operation is completed, the Hondius will travel with the essential part of its crew and the corpse of a victim to its base in the Netherlands, where it will be disinfected.

The ship is anchored, without docking, in the port of Granadilla so as not to touch land, at the express request of the Canary Islands regional authorities, who have made their opposition clear.

"With my authorization and connivance I will not endanger the population. If they want to violate the autonomous community and the will of the Canarian institutions, they are going to do it from the government of Spain, but not with our complicity," assured Canarian President Fernando Clavijo.

"The world is watching us again. And again Spain, as in many other crises, will respond to the height of what this great country is, with exemplarity and efficiency," said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez Sunday, at an event for his Socialist Party in Andalusia.

Thanks to the Canary Islands "for allowing the Hondius cruise ship … to dock," said Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter's Square. He will visit the archipelago in April as part of a trip to Spain.