{"id":77170,"date":"2026-05-07T16:13:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/77170\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T16:13:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:13:23","slug":"rat-virus-patient-evacuated-to-amsterdam-as-puke-everywhere-strategy-slammed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/77170\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Rat virus’ patient evacuated to Amsterdam as ‘puke everywhere’ strategy slammed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hantavirus, the deadly disease spread by rat and mice urine, is at risk of spreading across the globe after a cruise ship was forced to quarantine passengers due to an outbreak of the disease<\/p>\n

09:36, 07 May 2026Updated 09:36, 07 May 2026<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The patient was moved to a medicalised plane(Image: AP)<\/p>\n

A patient stricken with Hantavirus symptoms has been evacuated from Gran Canaria on a “medical plane”<\/a>. Spain’s ministry of health released a statement about the patient’s journey from the holiday to hotspot to Amsterdam this morning.<\/p>\n

The ill passenger had earlier been taken off the MV Hondius cruise ship, where the hantavirus outbreak began. Critics slammed the health authority for holding the person on a commercial plane<\/a> in Gran Canaria for an unspecified amount of time before they were transferred to a medical aircraft.<\/p>\n

The initial plane then departed, with only crew on board, for Rotterdam with a refuelling stop in Valencia. In a post translated by X, the Spanish Ministry of Health said: “Finally, the person with symptoms who had been on a plane in Gran Canaria since yesterday has been transferred to Amsterdam on a new medicalized plane different from the one they were initially on in Gran Canaria.<\/p>\n

\"Medical<\/p>\n

Medical staff waited for the patient to disembark (Image: ANP\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

“The aircraft that had remained in Gran Canaria later departed without passengers or patients on board, carrying only the crew, making a technical stop in Valencia to refuel before continuing on to Rotterdam. At all times, the operation is being carried out following the established health and safety protocols, in coordination with the competent authorities and the company responsible for the transfer.”<\/p>\n

The comment section of the post was flooded with criticisms of how the journey unfolded. One incensed person wrote: “Yeah, go on, spreading the viruses all over every available plane, then once you get to Amsterdam, take two taxis and four buses and sneeze and puke in all of them.”<\/p>\n

Another person wrote: “Hilarious, those \u201cestablished protocols\u201d that nobody bothers to explain. What exactly are they? Who decides: Health or Defense? Are we following WHO orders?”<\/p>\n

A third person said about the commercial plane which held the patient but didn’t transport them: “I hope they have also taken the initial plane. Don’t leave it on our island.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The MV Hondius is the most famous cruise ship in the world(Image: AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

A fourth person said: “Great, now we’re all safe: the virus has left the Canary Islands for Europe. What could possibly go wrong?”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, one of the British passengers struck down by the cruise ship hantavirus was last night named as former police officer Martin Anstee. The 56-year-old \u2013 who is also an expedition guide \u2013 was identified as one of the first Brits evacuated from the MV Hondius.<\/p>\n

Martin is one of three suspected hantavirus patients<\/a> who were removed from the ship and touched down in the Netherlands for treatment on Wednesday. Currently more than 20 Brits aboard the ship are awaiting transferral and face quarantined for a maximum of eight weeks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Anstee’s wife, Nicola, has revealed she has been enduring a \u201cvery traumatic few days’ since her husband fell ill.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Telegraph Nicola said: \u201cThe fear with this virus is it can deteriorate very quickly so it’s been a bit up and down for him. \u201cI don’t believe he’s in imminent danger now, but it was horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hantavirus, the deadly disease spread by rat and mice urine, is at risk of spreading across the globe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[199,8796,21322,41305,200,41304,41306],"class_list":{"0":"post-77170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-amsterdam","8":"tag-amsterdam","9":"tag-cruise-ships","10":"tag-cruises","11":"tag-health-issues","12":"tag-netherlands","13":"tag-rats","14":"tag-sunshine-holidays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116534182972388306","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}