{"id":62371,"date":"2026-05-08T12:24:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T12:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/62371\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T12:24:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T12:24:38","slug":"hantavirus-death-ship-canary-islands-leader-opposes-tenerife-dock-plan-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/62371\/","title":{"rendered":"Hantavirus death ship: Canary Islands leader opposes Tenerife dock plan \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Accusing Madrid of moving ahead without enough transparency, Clavijo said<\/a> he opposed allowing the MV Hondius to dock in the archipelago’s ports. In an interview with the Cope radio network, he added that the decision to admit the ship did not follow “any technical criteria” and said the national government had failed to provide “sufficient information to maintain a message of calm.”<\/p>\n

Spanish Territorial Policy Minister \u00c1ngel V\u00edctor Torres rejected the Canarian leader’s complaints and said Madrid had been in “constant contact” with his team. He added that Madrid had agreed to admit the MV Hondius to port after receiving instructions from the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n

A Spanish government spokesperson said the decision to allow the vessel to dock in Tenerife had been taken “in compliance with international law and humanitarian principles.” S\u00e1nchez held a meeting Wednesday morning with Torres, Health Minister M\u00f3nica Garc\u00eda, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Transport Minister \u00d3scar Puente to discuss the operation.<\/p>\n

Although some passengers requiring urgent care were evacuated from the ship as it passed Cape Verde on Wednesday, the rest are due to undergo medical screening, treatment and repatriation once the MV Hondius arrives in Tenerife. The Spanish government has selected La Candelaria University Hospital on the island, a center equipped to handle outbreaks of contagious diseases such as smallpox and Ebola, to treat any infected passengers.<\/p>\n

Concerns intensified<\/a> on Wednesday after South African authorities confirmed two cases of the Andes strain of hantavirus \u2014 one of the most aggressive variants of the disease \u2014 in travelers linked to the ship. <\/p>\n

The WHO later confirmed<\/a> Swiss authorities had also identified a case in a passenger on the MV Hondius, bringing the total number of suspected cases linked to the outbreak to eight.<\/p>\n

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said<\/a>, “WHO continues to work with the ship\u2019s operators to closely monitor the health of passengers and crew, working with countries to support appropriate medical follow-up and evacuation where needed. Monitoring and follow-up for passengers on board and for those who have already disembarked has been initiated in collaboration with the ship\u2019s operators and national health authorities.”<\/p>\n

Passengers aboard the ship are currently isolating<\/a> in their cabins as the vessel makes its way to European waters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Accusing Madrid of moving ahead without enough transparency, Clavijo said he opposed allowing the MV Hondius to dock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[36845,36846,304,305,6174],"class_list":{"0":"post-62371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pedro-sanchez","8":"tag-cape-verde","9":"tag-infectious-diseases","10":"tag-pedro-sanchez","11":"tag-spain","12":"tag-spanish-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116538943979277927","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}