Passengers leave Tenerife on evacuation flights

Nearly four weeks after a deadly hantavirus outbreak on a luxury cruise ship, an international evacuation operation is under way. Authorities from 23 countries are coordinating the evacuation as health agencies enforce strict precautions.

A transport plane from Tenerife to Eindhoven military airport landed late on Sunday. 

It was carrying 26 passengers or crew from the MV Hondius, including eight Dutch nationals and four Germans. 

Specialists, including from the Red Cross, were awaiting the plane’s arrvial. The four Germans were set to be transported to Frankfurt. 

“Relieved that they are safely on their way after a period of uncertainty and that the other passengers are travelling home via other routes,” Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen had said soon after the plane took off, thanking Spain and other partners for their cooperation.

According to authorities in the Netherlands all the passengers will be quarantined for around six weeks. 

Netherlands residents would be transported home for isolatioon while citizens of other countries without alternative options would be taken to a “quarantine location,” the Foreign Ministry said. 

Hantavirus can have a rather long incubation period, extending to or even beyond six weeks in exceptional cases, though typically symptoms will present faster than that.

Spanish civil protection chief Virginia Barcones told local radio that citizens of Belgium, Greece, Guatemala and Argentina were on board, as well as the four Germans. 

The four remaining German passengers from the MV Hondius will be placed in quarantine on their return, the Health Ministry of the state of Brandenburg said on Sunday. 

It said health officials had arranged for specialists to meet them upon their arrival in the Netherlands at the military airport in Eindhoven, and then transport them to Frankfurt as a first step. 

All four are thought to be asymptomatic. But should any of them display symptoms in transport, they would be taken to the Düsseldorf University Hospital, where one 65-year-old woman is already on the infectious diseases ward.

She had close contact with one of the patients on board who died, and was flown off the cruise ship before it reached Tenerife. 

One of the five French nationals repatriated on Sunday demonstrated symptoms during the flight, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said. 

“One of them showed symptoms in the repatriation plane,” Lecornu wrote online. “Also, these five passengers have been immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice.” 

Lecornu said they were receiving medical attention and would have tests and a medical check-up. 

Lecornu said that later on Sunday evening he would implement a temporary decree authorizing isolation measures for contact cases to protect the wider public, saying the Health Ministry would comment further later. 

Addressing the faithful from St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV praised the people of Spain’s Canary Islands, which includes Tenerife, for allowing the cruise ship Hondius into one if its ports after a hantavirus outbreak.

“I would like to express my gratitude for the hospitality that characterizes the people of the Canary Islands, and for taking in the cruise ship Hondius with the hantavirus patients,” Leo said after his midday prayer on Sunday.

Initially, regional officials in the Canary Islands refused to let the ship enter its ports, citing public safety. These objections have been overruled by the central government in Madrid.

The pope is due to visit Tenerife in just over a month and attend an event in the Santa Cruz port.

The plane carrying 13 passengers and one crew member evacuated from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship  has left the Tenerife airport and is flying towards Madrid, where the group is to be placed in quarantine.

This is the first out of several evacuation flights expected today and tomorrow.

Cruise shop MV Hondius was affected by a hantavirus outbreak after leaving Argentina. Earlier today, it reached the Spanish island of Tenerife with more than 140 from 20 nations aboard, triggering an international evacuation effort.

As multiple nations work to transfer their nationals from Tenerife following the evacuation of the Hondius cruise ship, a Dutch flight is set to transport a group of passengers from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Greece to the Dutch city of Eindhoven.

At the Dutch airport, four Germans will reportedly be met by German firefighters who will then transport them to Frankfurt, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast.

Citing unnamed sources, Germany’s DPA news agency said that any patient starting to show symptoms of a hantavirus infection will be taken to a clinic in the western German city of Dusseldorf.

The clinic is already treating a 65-year-old woman who had been a passenger on the Hondius and in contact with the German woman who passed away during the journey.

The first group of passengers, all Spanish nationals, have disembarked from the Hondius and been transported ashore on the Spanish island of Tenerife.

They are set to board military buses that will take them to the airport, where they will fly on a military plane to Madrid. Once there, they will be placed in quarantine.

“The entire operation is proceeding normally,” Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said.

Dutch nationals are expected to be the next to leave the vessel.

A medical team has now boarded the MV Hondius and is conducting an epidemiological investigation, according to the Spanish Health Ministry.

After a British national with a suspected hantavirus infection disembarked from the Hondius on the island of Tristan da Cunha, the UK military parachuted “specialist paratroopers and military clinicians” onto the British overseas territory.

Oxygen and other medical equipment were also dropped from the RAF cargo plane. The UK military described the drop as a “daring parachute operation to deliver critical medical support.”

The remote volcanic island, home of the Hondius passenger, is located in the South Atlantic and has no airstrip, making it accessible only by boat.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the safety of “all members of the British family” is the top priority and that her government will continue to ensure that “the right support is in place in the UK and across the Overseas Territories.”

Medical teams are now checking passengers for signs of infection as they disembark MV Hondius. The passengers are to be transported to land in small boats, divided into groups of five.

Spanish nationals will be the first to disembark.

Authorities previously said none of the nearly 150 passengers and crew aboard the ship currently showed symptoms of a Hantavirus infection. However, the incubation period for the virus can last for up to eight weeks.

Spain’s law enforcement agency Guardia Civil has sent teams to Tenerife the Port of Granadilla where the cruise ship MV Hondius is now anchored.

Nearly 150 people are onboard. International passengers will only be allowed to leave when their planes are ready at the nearby airport. 

All Spanish passengers are to be quarantined in a medical facility in Madrid.

The authorities hope to complete the evacuation process by tomorrow, with the last flight set to depart for Australia.

After all passengers and some crew evacuate the luxury cruise ship Hondius, the vessel is expected to sail to the Netherlands for disinfection. It will also transport the body of a German woman, one of three passengers believed to have died from the hantavirus outbreak, to a Dutch port.

The first victim, a Dutch man, was taken off the ship at the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena. His wife later died in a South African hospital after disembarking.

According to a manifest provided by the ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, six Germans remain aboard the ship. They are to be evacuated and flown back to Germany.

Germany’s official public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, recommends six weeks of isolation for suspected contact persons who are not showing symptoms of hantavirus infection. The quarantine can also be conducted at home.

A cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak has arrived at the Spanish island of Tenerife.

Spanish authorities say medical teams will first screen everyone on board for acute symptoms.

If none are found, passengers will disembark in groups of five, wearing FFP2 masks and carrying only light hand luggage.

They will be taken by bus to the airport and flown home on special charter flights arranged by their countries.

The World Health Organization says returns are planned for Sunday and Monday, with passengers expected to enter quarantine after arrival.

The vessel Hondius, which was hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak, arrived near the Port of Granadilla on Spain’s island of Tenerife on Sunday morning.

The virus killed three people aboard the luxury vessel.

Spanish officials said passengers would be tested before being transported ashore in small boats, then taken to the airport in sealed buses and flown to their home countries for quarantine.

Spanish authorities are gearing up for the arrival of the MV Hondius, with nearly 150 people on board.

Here’s what we know about the evacuation plans:

• They will be taken to the airport by bus once the planes from their countries are ready for take-off

• Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands have confirmed they will send planes to evacuate their citizens aboard MV Hodius

• The European Union is sending two more planes for the remaining European citizens

• The US and UK said planes and contingency plans were being arranged for non-EU citizens

• Local authorities say the evacuation must take place between Sunday and Monday, before weather conditions at sea change

• After the evacuation operation, MV Hondius is set to continue onward to the Netherlands, where it is to be disinfected in accordance with international protocols