EU countries prepare repatriation of hantavirus ship passengers

France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands will send planes to repatriate their citizens on the Tenerife-bound cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak, Spain said on Saturday.

The European Union is sending ​two additional planes for the remaining European citizens, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said during a briefing in Madrid.

The U.S. and Britain, meanwhile, are arranging planes and contingency plans for non-EU citizens from countries unable to send air transport.

Hantavirus is a disease typically spread by infected rats. As of Friday, there were a total of six confirmed cases of a hantavirus variant — named the “Andes” subtype — linked to the cruise ship and two probable cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The Andes subtype is the only variant known to spread among humans.

The WHO has sought to calm fears that the outbreak could trigger a global health emergency on the scale of Covid-19. The Spanish government’s plans to let the cruise ship, the MV Hondius, arrive in Tenerife have provoked controversy, including among Canary Islands leaders.

The ship will anchor off Tenerife without docking. Passengers will then be ferried to the industrial port of Granadilla and transported in “sealed, guarded vehicles, through a completely cordoned-off corridor” before being repatriated directly to their home countries, according to WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Ghebreyesus is set to travel to Tenerife with Spain’s interior and health ministers to coordinate the arrival of the cruise ship. Ghebreyesus addressed the people of Tenerife directly via social media on Saturday, acknowledging their fears while stressing that “this is not another Covid.”

“The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low,” Ghebreyesus said.

Ghebreyesus intends to “stand alongside the health workers, port staff, and officials who are making [the operation] happen, and to personally pay my respects to an island that has responded to a difficult situation with grace, solidarity, and compassion.”