Spanish authorities said on Monday that they had taken ‘all measures’ necessary to stop hantavirus spreading among passengers evacuated from a cruise ship linked to the outbreak, after French and US nationals later tested positive for the disease.
A large-scale repatriation effort was carried out from the Canary Islands on Sunday, involving 94 passengers and crew members from 19 different countries aboard the Dutch-registered MV Hondius. The vessel had sparked an international health alert after three passengers died. ALSO READ: Hantavirus cruise passengers flown home from Canary Islands under strict precautions.
Travellers were transported under strict medical supervision from the ship to Tenerife airport, where health teams carried out extensive sanitary controls before departure flights. ALSO READ: WHO chief heads to Canary Islands to oversee hantavirus cruise evacuation.
Despite those precautions, authorities in France and the United States later confirmed that one evacuee from each country had tested positive for hantavirus.
‘From the start, all the measures adopted have aimed at cutting the possible chains of transmission … all measures for prevention and control of transmission have been applied,’ the Spanish health ministry said in a statement.
According to the ministry, the French passenger ‘started to feel unwell during the flight and not while she was on the ship’.
It also said the US passenger who later tested positive ‘did not show symptoms when they were in Cape Verde’, where the MV Hondius had docked before arriving in the Canary Islands.
‘However, the US authorities have decided to treat the case as positive. For that reason, they requested a separate evacuation, which was carried out in a separate boat.’
Spanish officials were expected to complete the evacuation operation on Monday with two additional repatriation flights bound for Australia and the Netherlands, covering most of the ship’s roughly 150 passengers and crew.
Once refuelled, the MV Hondius is expected to leave for the Netherlands at 7pm with only a reduced crew remaining onboard.
‘There are still some citizens from the Netherlands and Australia, and hopefully we can even finish before the scheduled time,’ Spanish minister Ángel Víctor Torres told public radio RNE.
There are currently no vaccines or specific treatments available for hantavirus, a rare disease usually transmitted through rodents.
Health authorities have repeatedly stressed that the risk to global public health remains low and have rejected comparisons with the Covid-19 pandemic. Click here for the WHO’s full fact sheet on hantavirus.
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DIRECTO 📺 #Canal24horas | Mónica García, ministra de Sanidad: “Los 14 españoles y españolas que están en el Gómez Ulla se encuentran bien (…), se les ha hecho una PCR y a lo largo del día de hoy tendremos el resultado”. pic.twitter.com/o5DSdcfhFw
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