{"id":22238,"date":"2026-05-12T21:51:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/22238\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T21:51:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:51:27","slug":"spain-reports-new-hantavirus-case-in-passenger-evacuated-from-cruise-ship-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/22238\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain reports new hantavirus case in passenger evacuated from cruise ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE HAGUE, Netherlands \u2014 A Spanish passenger evacuated from the cruise ship at the center of a\u00a0hantavirus\u00a0outbreak has tested positive for the virus<\/a>, Spain\u2019s health ministry announced Tuesday, as the World Health Organization said it has now confirmed nine cases. Three people on the cruise died.<\/p>\n

The passenger with the new confirmed case of hantavirus was in quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid, where 13 other Spanish nationals evacuated Sunday are also staying. They all tested negative for the virus.<\/p>\n

With the\u00a0evacuation\u00a0of all passengers<\/a> and many crew members completed, the MV Hondius is now sailing back to the Netherlands, where it will be cleaned and disinfected.<\/p>\n

Passengers are disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. AP<\/p>\n

The director of the World Health Organization, who was in Madrid, said 11 cases reported worldwide are all among passengers or crew of the MV Hondius cruise ship. Nine have been confirmed as infections<\/a> of the Andes virus, a member of the hantavirus family. Two suspected hantavirus cases have been reported but not confirmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese numbers have changed little over the past week thanks to the governments of multiple countries and partners,\u201d said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak,\u201d he added, \u201cbut of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it\u2019s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 12 staff members at a Dutch hospital where a hantavirus patient is being treated were told to quarantine after incorrectly handling bodily fluids.<\/p>\n

A Spanish passenger evacuated from the cruise ship at the center of a\u00a0hantavirus\u00a0outbreak has tested positive for the virus, Spain\u2019s health ministry announced Tuesday. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThese numbers have changed little over the past week thanks to the governments of multiple countries and partners,\u201d said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general. CHEMA MOYA\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

In a Paris hospital, a French woman evacuated from the stricken ship<\/a> remained in intensive care in stable condition. The French government was holding two new hantavirus emergency meetings on Tuesday, the prime minister said.<\/p>\n

Health authorities say it\u2019s the first hantavirus outbreak\u00a0on a cruise ship. While there is no cure or vaccine for hantavirus, the WHO says early detection and treatment improve survival rates.<\/p>\n

The evacuation of the MV Hondius is complete<\/p>\n

A total of 87 passengers and 35 crew were escorted from the\u00a0ship\u00a0to shore<\/a> in Tenerife by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks in a carefully choreographed effort that ended Monday night. Remaining crew members then took on supplies and set course for the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, the ship\u2019s operator Oceanwide Expeditions said.<\/p>\n

Persons with protective suits wait in line after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius, docked in the port of Granadilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife in Spain\u2019s Canary Islands on May 11, 2026. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Two aircraft arrived in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven overnight. The first was carrying 19 of the ship\u2019s crew and three medics. The Dutch nationals were taken home to quarantine, and the others, including 17 crew members from the Philippines, were sent to a quarantine facility set up by Dutch health authorities.<\/p>\n

A second plane landed later in Eindhoven, chartered by Australian authorities and carrying six Hondius passengers \u2014 four Australians, one person from New Zealand, and a British national who lives in Australia, according to the Dutch foreign ministry. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the latest on the deadly hantavirus outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship:<\/p>\n

It said the passengers will remain in quarantine near the airport and continue their journey toward Australia \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d Australian authorities did not immediately respond to a request for more details.<\/p>\n

Hantavirus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. But\u00a0the Andes virus\u00a0detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms \u2014 which can include fever, chills, and muscle aches \u2014 usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.<\/p>\n

A Spanish passenger is sprayed with disinfectant by Spanish government officials before boarding a plane after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship. AP<\/p>\n

WHO chief Tedros has advised that returning passengers should stay in quarantine, either in their homes or in other facilities, for 42 days. He added that the WHO cannot enforce its guidance and that different countries may handle the monitoring of passengers without symptoms in different ways.<\/p>\n

Dutch hospital staff quarantined<\/p>\n

Twelve employees at a Dutch hospital where a passenger from the Hondius is being treated have to quarantine for six weeks after improperly handling bodily fluids, Radboud University Medical Center said in a statement Monday night.<\/p>\n

CHEMA MOYA\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The \u201crisk of infection is low,\u201d the hospital said, but it was requiring the dozen employees to go into preventive quarantine as a \u201cprecaution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hospital in the eastern city of Nijmegen received a passenger last week from one of the evacuation flights that landed in the Netherlands, and the person has since tested<\/a> positive for hantavirus.<\/p>\n

Blood and urine from the patient should have been handled \u201caccording to a stricter procedure,\u201d the hospital said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE HAGUE, Netherlands \u2014 A Spanish passenger evacuated from the cruise ship at the center of a\u00a0hantavirus\u00a0outbreak has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9683,9587,373,17,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-22238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-cruises","9":"tag-hantavirus","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-spain","12":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22238","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=22238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}