COUNTRIES SCRAMBLE TO TRACK PASSENGERS<\/p>\n
Health authorities across four continents were continuing to track down and monitor passengers who disembarked\u00a0the\u00a0ship\u00a0before\u00a0the\u00a0deadly outbreak was detected. They were scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.<\/p>\n
On April 24, nearly two weeks after\u00a0the\u00a0first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left\u00a0the\u00a0ship\u00a0without contact tracing, Dutch officials and\u00a0the\u00a0ship\u2019s operator said Thursday.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed\u00a0hantavirus\u00a0in\u00a0a\u00a0ship\u00a0passenger,\u00a0the\u00a0WHO said.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0KLM flight attendant who tested negative\u00a0for\u00a0the\u00a0virus was working on\u00a0a\u00a0flight 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.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0cruise\u00a0passenger briefly aboard that flight \u2013\u00a0a\u00a0Dutch woman whose husband died on\u00a0the\u00a0ship\u00a0\u2013 was too ill to stay on\u00a0the\u00a0international flight to Europe and was taken off\u00a0the\u00a0plane in Johannesburg, where she died.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Dutch public health service is currently undertaking contract tracing on passengers from\u00a0the\u00a0flight who had contact with\u00a0the\u00a0ill woman before she left\u00a0the\u00a0plane.<\/p>\n
On Friday, U.K. health authorities said\u00a0a\u00a0third British national is suspected to have\u00a0the\u00a0hantavirus.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0U.K. Health Security Agency said\u00a0the\u00a0suspected case is on Tristan da Cunha,\u00a0a\u00a0remote British overseas territory in\u00a0the\u00a0south Atlantic where\u00a0the\u00a0ship\u00a0stopped in April.<\/p>\n
There was no word on\u00a0the\u00a0person\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n
Two other Britons who were on\u00a0the\u00a0ship\u00a0have been confirmed to have\u00a0the\u00a0virus. One is hospitalized in\u00a0the\u00a0Netherlands and\u00a0the\u00a0other in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Authorities in South Africa are working to trace contacts of any passengers who previously got off\u00a0the\u00a0ship. They have focused mainly on an April 25 flight from\u00a0the\u00a0remote island of St. Helena in\u00a0the\u00a0South Atlantic to Johannesburg,\u00a0the\u00a0day after some passengers disembarked on\u00a0the\u00a0island.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
SPANISH AUTHORITIES REASSURE PUBLIC<\/p>\n
Spanish officials sought to reassure those with concerns about\u00a0the\u00a0evacuation of\u00a0the\u00a0MV Hondius in\u00a0the\u00a0Canary\u00a0Islands.<\/p>\n
Barcones said passengers would be evacuated from\u00a0the\u00a0ship\u00a0only to go directly to\u00a0the\u00a0airport\u00a0for\u00a0their country of origin, and would travel in isolated and guarded vehicles.\u00a0The\u00a0parts of\u00a0the\u00a0airport they travel through will also be cordoned off, she said.<\/p>\n
Still, some Spaniards drew parallels to\u00a0the\u00a0early months of 2020, despite\u00a0the\u00a0WHO and Spanish health experts stressing\u00a0the\u00a0low risk of\u00a0the\u00a0outbreak turning into something much bigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe\u00a0people of\u00a0the\u00a0Canary\u00a0Islands,\u00a0the\u00a0men and women living there, can rest assured that there will be absolutely no possibility of contact at any time,\u201d Barcones said.<\/p>\n
With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press<\/p>\n
Lead image caption: The MV Hondius cruise ship departs the port in Praia, Cape Verde, May 6, 2026 \u2014 CREDIT AP Photo\/Misper Apawu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COUNTRIES SCRAMBLE TO TRACK PASSENGERS Health authorities across four continents were continuing to track down and monitor passengers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9587,10568,17],"class_list":["post-19533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-hantavirus","tag-lead-story","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19533","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=19533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}