COUNTRIES SCRAMBLE TO TRACK PASSENGERS
Health authorities across four continents were continuing to track down and monitor passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.
On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator said Thursday.
It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the WHO said.
The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25, and had later fallen ill. She was taken to an isolation ward at an Amsterdam hospital on Thursday.
The cruise passenger briefly aboard that flight – a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship – was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe and was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.
The Dutch public health service is currently undertaking contract tracing on passengers from the flight who had contact with the ill woman before she left the plane.
On Friday, U.K. health authorities said a third British national is suspected to have the hantavirus.
The U.K. Health Security Agency said the suspected case is on Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory in the south Atlantic where the ship stopped in April.
There was no word on the person’s condition.
Two other Britons who were on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus. One is hospitalized in the Netherlands and the other in South Africa.
Authorities in South Africa are working to trace contacts of any passengers who previously got off the ship. They have focused mainly on an April 25 flight from the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic to Johannesburg, the day after some passengers disembarked on the island.
SPANISH AUTHORITIES REASSURE PUBLIC
Spanish officials sought to reassure those with concerns about the evacuation of the MV Hondius in the Canary Islands.
Barcones said passengers would be evacuated from the ship only to go directly to the airport for their country of origin, and would travel in isolated and guarded vehicles. The parts of the airport they travel through will also be cordoned off, she said.
Still, some Spaniards drew parallels to the early months of 2020, despite the WHO and Spanish health experts stressing the low risk of the outbreak turning into something much bigger.
“The people of the Canary Islands, the men and women living there, can rest assured that there will be absolutely no possibility of contact at any time,” Barcones said.
With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
Lead image caption: The MV Hondius cruise ship departs the port in Praia, Cape Verde, May 6, 2026 — CREDIT AP Photo/Misper Apawu