{"id":18351,"date":"2026-05-07T01:46:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T01:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/18351\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T01:46:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T01:46:03","slug":"3-evacuated-from-hantavirus-cruise-ship-as-spain-says-it-will-dock-in-canary-islands-despite-local-opposition-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/18351\/","title":{"rendered":"3 evacuated from hantavirus cruise ship as Spain says it will dock in Canary Islands despite local opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The cruise ship MV Hondius is seen off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on May 3, 2026. | CBS<\/p>\n

Three patients suspected of having the hantavirus were evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship and were on their way to the Netherlands for medical care, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The three are German, Dutch and British nationals, including a British crew member, according to the WHO.<\/p>\n

The rare outbreak of the virus has killed three people from the cruise.<\/p>\n

In the latest twist in the ordeal for the roughly 150 passengers, the Spanish government reaffirmed on Wednesday what it initially announced the previous day, saying the vessel would dock in the Canary Islands, despite the head of the local government rejecting the plan earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

The plan announced Tuesday, coordinated between the Spanish government and the WHO, had been for the ship to head to the Canary Islands for a \u201cfull investigation\u201d and \u201cfull inspection\u201d after the three patients were evacuated. But the leader of the archipelago\u2019s regional government, Fernando Clavijo, rejected the idea Wednesday morning, saying he had requested a meeting with Spain\u2019s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.<\/p>\n

A general view of the cruise ship MV Hondius, while stationary off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on May 6, 2026.AFP via Getty Images
In a social media post, Clavijo, a member of Spain\u2019s conservative political opposition, wrote: \u201cThe Canary Islands always acts with responsibility, but it cannot accept decisions taken behind the backs of the Canary Islands institutions and without sufficient information to the population.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a later news conference, however, Spain\u2019s health minister Monica Garcia Gomez doubled down the plan, saying the ship would dock at Granadilla on the Canary island of Tenerife, \u201cwithin three days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA joint system for health assessment and evacuation will be put in place to repatriate all passengers, unless their medical condition prevents it,\u201d she told reporters.<\/p>\n

Regarding Clavijo\u2019s earlier comments on the plan, Gomez said she had been in \u201cconstant contact\u201d with Clavijo and that he would be involved in all meetings.<\/p>\n

A flight that had been planned to evacuate the ship\u2019s doctor, who was showing symptoms, to the Canary Islands was canceled early Wednesday, a source close to the regional presidency told the French news agency AFP.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s health ministry\u00a0announced later\u00a0that the sick individuals would instead be treated in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

South African authorities confirmed on Wednesday that they had identified the so-called\u00a0Andes strain of the hantavirus\u00a0in two people who had previously been on the cruise. The Andes strain, which is found primarily in Argentina and Chile, can be transmitted from human to human, unlike other strains of the virus.<\/p>\n

Swiss authorities announced Wednesday that a man who previously traveled on the ship and returned home at the end of April had\u00a0also tested positive for the Andes strain\u00a0of the virus, adding that there was \u201ccurrently no risk to the Swiss public.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French Ministry of Health, meanwhile, told the country\u2019s\u00a0BFM TV\u00a0network a French \u201ccontact case\u201d had been confirmed. The man is believed to have traveled on the same flight as one of the two patients evacuated to Johannesburg for treatment in late April.<\/p>\n

There is currently one British national in intensive care in South Africa after being on the cruise, but the French authorities were likely referring to the other patient evacuated to Johannesburg, a 69-year-old Dutch woman who the WHO said got off the ship with \u201cgastrointestinal symptoms\u201d on April 24 and died two days later after her condition \u201cdeteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg.\u201d<\/p>\n

That brings the total number of suspected or confirmed cases to nine, including three who have died, five confirmed as receiving treatment, and the French man, about whom few details have been given.<\/p>\n

The ship\u2019s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said two infectious disease specialists were heading Wednesday from the Netherlands to the cruise and would \u201cremain with the vessel after its anticipated departure from Cape Verde.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dutch-flagged MV Hontius, a luxury cruise-liner, left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1. It has been anchored off Cape Verde, an island off Africa\u2019s west coast in the Atlantic, since Sunday.<\/p>\n

Ann Lindstrand, the WHO representative in Cape Verde, told CBS News\u2019 Ramy Inocencio on Tuesday that there was no risk of a pandemic-level threat with the hantavirus given the low likelihood of human-to-human transmission.<\/p>\n

Spanish and Dutch authorities are \u201cintensely discussing\u201d what will happen next to the passengers on the ship, she said. They have been told to remain in their cabins as much as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is the need for a quarantine, that will be a decision of the health authorities in Spain or Holland at that point in time, with the close collaboration with the advice of WHO,\u201d Lindstrand said.<\/p>\n

If needed, a quarantine could last as long as two months, since the incubation period for hantavirus is between one and eight weeks, she added, noting that \u201ceight weeks is a horribly long time to be in quarantine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindstrand said she was in contact with a volunteer doctor on the boat who told her the passengers were \u201ccoping surprisingly well,\u201d though they were anxious to know what their next port of call.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have heard from quite a few people on the boat,\u201d Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said Tuesday. \u201cWe just want you to know we are working with the ship\u2019s operators. We are working with the countries where you are from. We hear you. We know that you are scared.\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tTags: Cruise<\/a>, Deadly<\/a>, death<\/a>, Evacuated<\/a>, Hantavirus<\/a>, health<\/a>, Illness<\/a>, sickness<\/a>, Virus<\/a>, WHO<\/a>, World Health Organization<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cruise ship MV Hondius is seen off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1280,10155,1784,10156,9587,373,10157,10158,17,10108,2205,1924],"class_list":{"0":"post-18351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-cruise","9":"tag-deadly","10":"tag-death","11":"tag-evacuated","12":"tag-hantavirus","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-illness","15":"tag-sickness","16":"tag-spain","17":"tag-virus","18":"tag-who","19":"tag-world-health-organization"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}