Hantavirus cruise ship passengers began flying home from Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday after an outbreak on the MV Hondius killed three people, officials said.
Three passengers on the Dutch-flagged vessel, including a Dutch couple and a German woman, died from the rare disease. Other people aboard the ship also fell sick after it left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for Cape Verde.
Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said the final flight for most of the nearly 150 passengers and crew would leave for Australia on Monday. Additionally, she said the ship would then continue to the Netherlands.
Passengers wearing blue medical suits left the vessel by smaller boats to reach Granadilla port on Tenerife. AFP journalists saw evacuees board a Spanish army bus before travelling in a Civil Guard convoy to Tenerife South airport.
Spanish authorities said the passengers changed into new protective gear before boarding repatriation flights. The first flight carried 14 Spaniards, who will quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid.
World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the port that the operation was going well.
Regional authorities said the operation had to finish by Monday because adverse weather would force the ship to leave. Canary Islands officials allowed the vessel to anchor offshore but refused to dock it at the port. Garcia said a Dutch flight would also carry citizens from Germany, Belgium and Greece. Meanwhile, officials planned separate flights for citizens of Canada, Turkey, France, Britain, Ireland and the United States.
Garcia said all passengers were asymptomatic and received a final medical assessment before disembarkation. Spanish officials said evacuees would have no contact with the local population in Tenerife during the operation.
The WHO said Friday it had confirmed six hantavirus cases out of eight suspected cases, with none remaining aboard. Health officials said tests confirmed the Andes virus, the only hantavirus type known to spread between humans, among those who tested positive.
Officials have stressed that the global public health risk remains low despite the outbreak. However, health authorities in several countries have begun tracing passengers who had already left the ship and anyone who may have come into contact with them.
