Canary Islands brace for arrival of hantavirus-hit cruise ship

A cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak is headed for Spain's Canary Islands, where most of the nearly 150 people on board will be evacuated and flown home after weeks at sea.

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is expected to reach waters off Tenerife at dawn on Sunday, with WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus due to help coordinate the ship's evacuation there.

Three passengers from the ship -- a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman -- have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents.

The only hantavirus type that can transmit from person to person -- the Andes virus -- has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, fuelling international concern.

At the port of Granadilla de Abona, AFP journalists saw white tents had been sent up along the quay.

Despite the situation, daily life appeared largely normal: some people were swimming, others shopping at the market or sitting at cafe terraces.

"There are worries there could be a danger, but honestly I don't see people being very concerned," said David Parada, a lottery vendor.

Regional authorities have refused to allow the vessel to dock. Instead, it will remain offshore while passengers are screened and evacuated between Sunday and Monday -- the only window health officials say the weather will allow.

The WHO said Friday it had confirmed six cases out of eight suspected ones. There are no suspected cases remaining on the ship.

The MV Hondius is sailing from Cape Verde, where three infected people had already been evacuated earlier in the week.

It was expected to arrive between 0300 and 0500 GMT Sunday, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia Gomez said, adding that part of the crew would remain on board as the ship continues on to the Netherlands.

Before its arrival, the WHO chief was to meet Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Madrid before travelling with the health and interior ministers to the archipelago later Saturday.

Not another Covid

Tedros, who arrived in Spain on Saturday, assured the people of Tenerife that the risk to them from the incoming ship was "low" and thanked them for their "solidarity".

"I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another Covid," he wrote in an open letter to the people of the Spanish island.

Speaking to reporters in Madrid, Spain's health and interior ministers insisted there would be "no contact with the local population.

Interior Minister Fernando Grandeâ€'Marlaska said the operation would be swift, with passengers leaving "by nationality groups".

After being examined on board, they will be taken on smaller boats and transferred by bus to the airport. There, they will be flown back to their home countries, including to the United States, Britain, and France.

"All areas (the passengers) pass through will be sealed off," the interior minister said, adding a maritime exclusion zone would be in force around the vessel.

The 14 Spanish nationals on the ship will be evacuated first, Garcia Gomez added.

Tracking and tracing

The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde.

Provincial 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, among other factors.

Health authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already disembarked and anyone who may have come into contact with them.

A flight attendant on the Dutch airline KLM, who came into contact with an infected passenger from the cruise ship and later showed mild symptoms, tested negative for hantavirus, the WHO said Friday.

The passenger -- the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak -- had briefly been on a plane bound from Johannesburg to the Netherlands on April 25, but was removed before take-off.

She died the following day in a Johannesburg hospital.

Spanish authorities said a woman on that flight was being tested for hantavirus, having developed symptoms at home in eastern Spain. She is in isolation in hospital, said health secretary Javier Padilla.

"This is a pretty unlikely case," he told reporters, saying she had been two rows behind the woman who died.

Two Singapore residents who had been on the ship tested negative for the disease but would remain in quarantine, the city state's authorities said Friday.

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 people.