The leader of Spain’s Canary Islands has expressed his opposition to allowing a luxury cruise ship stricken by a deadly Hantavirus outbreak to dock on the archipelago.
The outbreak of the rare, rat-borne illness that has a 40 per cent mortality rate has left three people dead and several others extremely ill.
Meanwhile, the company that operates the ship, which is presently anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, says it plans to move to the Spanish islands.
But on Wednesday, the president of the Canaries, Fernando Clavijo, told COPE radio station that he had requested an ‘urgent meeting’ with the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, saying that the decision to allow the cruise ship to dock on Canarian territory was not based on ‘any technical criteria.’
He added that there is ‘insufficient information to maintain a message of calm and guarantee the safety of the Canary Island population.’
Clavijo also criticised the Spanish government for its ‘institutional disloyalty’ and lack of professionalism for failing to keep him informed.
He also reproached the Minister of Health, Mónica García, for failing to provide him with explanations regarding the criteria used by the World Health Organisation.
‘I cannot allow it to enter the Canary Islands,’ he insisted.
Earlier on Wednesday, Spanish state broadcaster TVE reported the cruise ship was set to dock at the Canary Island of Tenerife, citing sources from the country’s health ministry.
It comes as the Swiss government said on Wednesday that a man who had been a passenger on the cruise ship is being treated in Zurich after contracting hantavirus, with authorities in the Canaries and Cape Verde fearing potential cases of the virus.
The Swiss government added that there is currently no danger to the Swiss population.
It was also confirmed that two extremely ill crew members, including a British doctor, will be evacuated from the ship.
One crew member will be evacuated through Cape Verde to the Netherlands.
At the same time, the British doctor, who is in serious condition, will be flown straight to the Canaries in a hospital plane, according to Spanish media.
Spain’s health ministry said the ship was due to arrive at the Islands in ‘three to four days’, adding that upon arrival, ‘crew and passengers will be duly examined, cared for, and transferred to their respective countries.’ It is unclear which port the ship will dock at.
The health ministry said the World Health Organisation had explained that the Canary Islands were ‘the closest place with the necessary capabilities’ medically.
Cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said its plan was for the ship to sail north ‘to the Canary Islands, either Gran Canaria or Tenerife, which will take three days of sailing’.
The MV Hondius has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when the WHO was informed that the rare disease – usually spread from infected rodents, typically through urine, droppings and saliva – was suspected of being behind the deaths of three of its passengers.
As others fell ill, passengers and crew have been in isolation after Cape Verde authorities blocked the ship from docking. The ship is anchored just off the island nation’s capital, Praia.
Recent footage from inside the ship showed the ship’s decks mainly abandoned, with only a few people wearing medical masks moving about.
Common spaces were empty as passengers were isolated in their cabins. At least five people with full protective gear, white overalls, boots and face masks, were seen leaving from the ship into a small vessel.
The Dutch operator Oceanwide Expeditions revealed Tuesday that a solution was in sight, with plans to evacuate two sick crew members to the Netherlands for ‘urgent medical care’, along with a third person who had been in close contact with a German passenger who died on Saturday.
Once the evacuation has taken place, MV Hondius ‘can continue its route’, Ann Lindstrand, the WHO’s representative in Cape Verde, said.
The cruise, which set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1, was bound for Cape Verde and had 88 passengers and 59 crew members, representing 23 nationalities, the WHO said.
One of the dead, a Dutch woman, had left the ship at the Atlantic island of Saint Helena and had flown to Johannesburg, where she died on April 26.
Two hantavirus cases have been confirmed – including in one of the fatalities and a British passenger currently in intensive care in Johannesburg – with five further suspected cases, the WHO said.
Three of those seven have died; the one in Johannesburg was critically ill, and three still on board had reported symptoms, including one who is now asymptomatic, it said.
The WHO was attempting to figure out how hantavirus had occurred on the ship, with the first person who died having developed symptoms on April 6.
Dozens of people are now being traced after they boarded a flight with one of the cruise ship passengers who later died of a rat–borne virus.
A Dutch passenger had left the ship in Saint Helena with ‘gastrointestinal symptoms’ on April 24 and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the emergency department of a Johannesburg hospital.
The WHO said: ‘Contact tracing for passengers has been initiated.’
One weekly flight from the island is operated by Airlink, and it takes around four hours.
The South African authorities had asked the airline to notify the passengers that they must contact the health department, a representative said.
According to the UK Government’s hantavirus advice, symptoms typically appear between two and four weeks after exposure, but can range from two days to eight weeks, meaning illness may develop in other passengers in the coming days or weeks.
Around 40 per cent of cases result in death, according to the US Centres for Disease Control.
Fatigue, fever, pains in the muscles, and severe headaches are some of the early symptoms.
They normally only transmit through body fluids and intimate touch, not from person to person.
The chance of contracting the illness can be reduced through minimising contact with rodents.
Meanwhile, the UK Government is putting ‘plans in place’ for the onward travel of Britons stuck aboard the cruise ship, the Prime Minister said.
In a post on X, Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘My thoughts are with those affected by the hantavirus outbreak onboard the MV Hondius.
‘We are working closely with international partners to support British nationals on board, and we’re putting plans in place for their safe onward travel.
‘The risk to the wider public remains very low – protecting the British people is our number one priority.’
The people on board should be isolated in their cabins, but for no longer than 8 weeks before repatriation to their home countries to prevent further spread, even in severe outbreaks, because it’s neither medically justified nor practically safe.
Eight weeks is far beyond the incubation or infectious period of any known rat-born virus that affects humans. Even the longest-lasting ones (like Lassa fever) have an incubation period of typically 1-3 weeks. The infectious period is usually days, not months, and the monitoring period is normally 21 days, not 56.
So an 8‑week confinement would not align with established epidemiology, and cabin isolation for that long would create new health hazards, such as medical deterioration, particularly for older passengers. A mental health crisis, increased need for medical intervention, and a logistical strain on crew, food delivery, waste management, and ventilation systems, because cruise ships are not designed to function as long-term quarantine facilities.
When news breaks so dramatically, as this has, people tap into their collective memories of early 2020, but now we have a cruise ship with an emerging virus in the headlines, so it’s not surprising that our minds jump to patterns that we’ve seen before.
This isn’t a new virus, and it isn’t behaving in a new way. The Hantaviruses are well-known, and it’s a rodent-borne virus that has been studied for decades. It doesn’t spread easily between humans, and in most outbreaks, it doesn’t spread between humans at all, and the threat to the general public is extremely low. As in cases like on a cruise ship, rodent exposure would have been picked up somewhere along the way, not a new mutation or a human-to-human chain, so this is not the language of a virus gearing up for a global sweep.
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