Hantavirus-hit cruise ship nears Canary Islands for WHO-led evacuation

About 150 people will be flown home once the MV Hondius docks at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Spain

A cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak is headed for Spain’s Canary Islands, where most of the nearly 150 people on board will be evacuated and flown home after weeks at sea.

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is expected to reach waters off Tenerife at dawn on Sunday, where WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is due to help coordinate the ship’s evacuation.

Three passengers from the ship – a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman – have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents.

The only hantavirus type that can transmit from person to person – the Andes virus – has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, fuelling international concern.

“We classify everybody on board as what we call a high-risk contact,” WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director Maria Van Kerkhove said on Saturday.

But the risk to the general public and the people of the Canaries remained low, she added.