Madrid (dpa) – Travel arrangements for European passengers aboard the hantavirus-hit Hondius have been made, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told a press conference in Madrid on Saturday, as the cruise ship nears Tenerife.

“I can confirm that return flights to France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands have already been planned,” he told a joint press conference with Health Minister Mónica García.

There were passengers and crew from 23 countries aboard the Hondius, which is on its way to the Spanish island of Tenerife.

World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus assured the people of Tenerife that the public health risk from hantavirus was low, emphasizing that the outbreak was not comparable to the coronavirus pandemic.

He said he was aware that people were worried. “The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment. But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low.”

Tedros also noted that there were currently no passengers with symptoms aboard the Hondius.

The Hondius is expected to arrive off the port of Granadilla in southern Tenerife on Sunday morning between 4 am and 6 am (0300-0500 GMT). Passengers would begin disembarking after dawn, Grande-Marlaska said.

All those aboard would be checked for symptoms, he said. The 14 Spanish citizens would be taken to Tenerife South Airport and flown to Madrid by military plane, where they would go into quarantine in a hospital, the ministers said.

Passengers would be brought ashore by boat from the Hondius lying at anchor offshore and then taken to the airport by bus once planes from their countries were ready for take-off, the Spanish ministers said. They would be transported directly onto the runway, while luggage apart from hand luggage would remain aboard the Hondius.

Tedros emphasized that the passengers will be transported in sealed, guarded vehicles and escorted through a cordoned-off corridor, adding: “You will not encounter them. Your families will not encounter them.”

Once disembarkation is complete, the Hondius and its remaining crew will leave for the Netherlands, where disinfection will be carried out, García said. The body of the German who died during the cruise will remain aboard.

She said the arrangements had been made in coordination with the WHO, the European Union, and the Dutch and Spanish health authorities.

García confirmed information from the ship’s operators that no one aboard was currently showing symptoms of infection with hantavirus.

The Hondius left Cape Verde for the Canary Islands on Wednesday evening, having originally begun its voyage in early April in southern Argentina.

In an update late on Friday evening, the WHO said there had been six confirmed and two suspected cases of hantavirus. In three of the eight, the patient had died – an elderly Dutch couple and a German woman.

It remains unclear where the initial infection occurred. The authorities in Argentina do not believe the source lay in Tierra del Fuego, the province in the country’s deep south.

“The likelihood that the infection took place here is practically zero,” Juan Petrina, head of epidemiology in the province’s Health Ministry, said.

According to the Health Ministry, the Dutch couple who died after being infected with hantavirus arrived in the provincial capital of Ushuaia on March 29 following a months-long trip through the whole of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

They boarded the Hondius on April 1 and began showing symptoms on April 6. The ministry noted that the incubation period for the virus was at least two weeks. “These times do not align with infection in Tierra del Fuego,” Petrina said.

Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has advised that Hondius passengers should remain in quarantine for six weeks. It said that quarantine at home was possible, depending on the circumstances.

Source: dpa.com