Spain says it took ‘all measures’ to stop hantavirus spread, after US, French positive tests

MADRID – Spain on May 11 said it took “all measures” to prevent the hantavirus spreading from evacuees on a cruise ship hit by the virus, after French and US nationals tested positive.

A complex repatriation operation from the Canary Islands on May 10 flew out 94 passengers and crew of 19 different nationalities from the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, which is at the centre of an international alert after three passengers died.

Medical teams escorted travellers to an airport in Tenerife under close supervision and following thorough sanitary checks.

The French and US authorities each reported a positive hantavirus test among their evacuees.

“From the start, all the measures adopted have aimed at cutting the possible chains of transmission... All measures for prevention and control of transmission have been applied,” the Spanish Health Ministry said in a statement.

The French woman, one of five passengers from France flown back from the MV Hondius and placed in isolation in Paris, started to feel unwell late on May 10, and “tests came back positive”, said French Health Minister Stephanie Rist.

The US health department, meanwhile, said an American evacuated from the ship had “mild symptoms”, and that another tested positive for the Andes virus, the only hantavirus strain that is transmissible between humans.

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

The final 22 people to be evacuated will all leave on a plane to the Netherlands, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said, changing an original schedule that had involved a second plane to Australia.

After refuelling, the ship is scheduled to depart for the Netherlands at 7pm with a skeleton crew.

“There are still some citizens from the Netherlands and Australia, and hopefully we can even finish before the scheduled time,” Spanish government minister Angel Victor Torres told public radio RNE.

No vaccines or specific treatments exist for hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, where the ship departed in April.

But health officials have insisted that the risk for global public health is low and played down comparisons to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Rist said 22 more contact cases had been identified among the French nationals, including eight people who travelled on an April 25 flight between Saint Helena and Johannesburg, and 14 more on a flight between Johannesburg and Amsterdam.

The Dutch woman who died was on the flight to Johannesburg and later briefly boarded a flight to Amsterdam but was removed prior to take-off.

The health authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already disembarked from the ship, plus anyone who may have come into contact with them.

Spanish officials said the evacuation of most of the ship’s nearly 150 passengers and crew, which include 23 nationalities, would continue until the final repatriation flights to Australia and the Netherlands late on May 11.

The Dutch-flagged ship will refuel in the morning and is expected to depart for the Netherlands with about 30 crew members at 7pm on May 11.

Passengers wearing blue medical suits began disembarking the Dutch-flagged vessel on May 10 to reach the small industrial port of Granadilla in Tenerife.

Race against time

The Canary Islands authorities have warned that the operation must be completed by May 11, when adverse weather conditions will force the ship to leave.

The Atlantic archipelago’s regional government has consistently resisted taking in the ship, which was authorised to only anchor offshore, instead of docking in the port when it arrived early on May 10.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 42-day quarantine and “active follow-up”, including daily checks for symptoms such as fever, the UN body’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, said in Geneva.

Greece’s Health Ministry said a Greek male evacuee would spend 45 days in mandatory hospital quarantine in Athens, while 14 Spanish citizens will also isolate at a military hospital in Madrid.

Australia said it would place its six evacuees in a purpose-built quarantine facility north of Perth for at least three weeks.

A plane carrying 20 British citizens who were aboard the ship arrived in Manchester in north-west England on May 10.

Officials said the group would be taken to a hospital near Liverpool for tests and about 72 hours of quarantine.

But a top US health official said the 17 American passengers would not necessarily be quarantined at a specialised centre in the state of Nebraska.

Depending on the estimated risk, passengers can choose to go home “without exposing other people on the way”, said Dr Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was in Tenerife to help supervise the evacuations, said that policy “may have risks”.

The group was expected to land in Omaha early on May 11, said a spokesman for the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde, where three infected people were evacuated to Europe earlier in the week.

The WHO believes the first infection occurred before the start of the expedition, followed by transmission between humans on board the vessel.

But Argentine provincial health official Juan Petrina has said there was an “almost zero chance” the Dutch man linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia based on the virus’ weeks-long incubation period, among other factors. AFP