Ireland, Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands will send planes to evacuate their citizens aboard the Tenerife-bound cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak, Spain’s interior minister said on Saturday.
The European Union is sending two further planes for remaining European citizens, Fernando Grande-Marlaska added.
The United States and United Kingdom have confirmed planes and contingency plans were being arranged for non-EU citizens whose countries were unable to send air transport, he said.
World Health Organisation (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is meeting Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, in Madrid on Saturday and will then travel to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, alongside Spain’s interior and health ministers, to co-ordinate the arrival of the MV Hondius. It is expected to anchor near the island early on Sunday morning.
Local authorities have warned the evacuation must take place between Sunday midday and Monday afternoon before conditions at sea are expected to take a turn for the worse until the end of May due to stormy weather.
The MV Hondius left for Spain on Wednesday from the coast of Cape Verde after the WHO and European Union asked the country to manage the evacuation of passengers on-board after the hantavirus outbreak was detected.
The WHO said on Friday that eight people had fallen ill, including three who died – a Dutch couple and a German national. Six of these people are confirmed to have contracted the virus, with another two suspected cases, the WHO has said.
Hantavirus is usually spread by rodents but can in rare cases be transmitted person-to-person. All passengers as well as 17 crew members will be evacuated but 30 crew will stay on board and travel on to the Netherlands, Spain’s health minister, Monica Garcia, said.
Luggage and the body of a deceased passenger on the ship will remain on board and the ship will be fully disinfected on arrival, she added.
Spanish citizens will disembark first, with the order of evacuation of the remaining groups of citizens to be determined by health authorities. Citizens will not be able to disembark until their evacuation plane is ready to depart, Grande-Marlaska said.
Ghebreyesus published a direct message on Saturday to the people of Tenerife, in which he said: “It is not common for me to write directly to the people of a single community, but today I feel it is not only appropriate, it is necessary.
“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” he said.
“But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another Covid. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low.”
He said the Andes strain of hantavirus on the ship “is serious” but added: “The risk to you, living your daily life in Tenerife, is low. This is the WHO’s assessment, and we do not make it lightly.”
“Right now, there are no symptomatic passengers on board. A WHO expert is on that ship. Medical supplies are in place. Spain’s authorities have prepared a careful, step-by-step plan: passengers will be ferried ashore at the industrial port of Granadilla, far from residential areas, in sealed, guarded vehicles, through a completely cordoned-off corridor, and repatriated directly to their home countries. You will not encounter them. Your families will not encounter them.” – Reuters/The Guardian