Evacuation of passengers from virus-hit cruise ship to be completed on Monday
The evacuation of passengers from a Dutch-flagged luxury cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak will be completed on Monday with flights from Australia and the Netherlands, Spain’s health minister has said.
One flight from Australia will evacuate six passengers from the Spanish island of Tenerife and another from the Netherlands will take 18 passengers, with both flights also carrying passengers from other countries that did not send their own repatriation flights, officials have said.
Eight people no longer on the ship have fallen ill, according to a World Health Organization tally from Friday, of whom six are confirmed to have contracted the virus. Three have died – a Dutch couple and a German national.
On Sunday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said one of the 17 Americans being repatriated has tested positive for the Andes strain of the virus while a second has mild symptoms.
The French health minister said a French passenger had tested positive for the virus and that person’s health was deteriorating. It was not clear if these two cases were included in the six reported by the WHO.
Planes carrying passengers were to leave Tenerife for Canada, the Netherlands, Turkey, France, Britain, Ireland, and the United States on Sunday and Monday. Some passengers have also been flown to Madrid.
The passengers will be tested upon arrival and then either taken to hospitals or quarantine facilities or transported home for isolation.
The WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers from the boat from Sunday, its director of epidemic and pandemic management, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a briefing.
Thirty crew members will remain on board and sail to the Netherlands on Monday evening where the ship will be disinfected.
Experts Downplay Threat
Health officials urged calm, reminding a public scarred from the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic that this virus was far less contagious and posed little risk to the general population.
“We have been repeating the same answer many times,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “This is not another COVID. And the risk to the public is low. So they shouldn’t be scared, and they shouldn’t panic.”
Even so, those disembarking and workers at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife wore protective gear during the evacuation process, including hazardous-materials suits, face masks and respirators.
It is noteworthy that Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings, and the disease is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
