TENERIFE, Canary Islands (AP) — Passengers started disembarking on Sunday from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship anchored off Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands, hours after arriving there as evacuation plans got underway.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene saw people reaching land after leaving the ship. Nobody among the more than 140 people on the MV Hondius is showing symptoms of the virus, Spanish authorities, the World Health Organization and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said.
Spain’s health ministry said that Spanish nationals would be the first to leave the ship, and would be ferried off in small launch boats that carry between five and 10 people.
The cruise ship reached Tenerife early Sunday morning, after leaving Cape Verde on May 6.
Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus, which can cause life-threatening illness.
Everyone disembarking will be checked for symptoms, and are being taken off the ship only once evacuation flights are ready to fly them to their destinations.
“The entire operation is proceeding normally,” Spanish Health Minister Mónica García said.
Authorities are aiming to complete the evacuation flights between Sunday and Monday. There are people of more than 20 different nationalities on board.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spain’s health and interior ministers, will supervise the operation in Tenerife, the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa.
Authorities have said the passengers and crew members who will disembark will have no contact with the local population.
Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
Passengers and crew members disembarking are leaving behind their luggage, and are allowed to take only a small bag with essential items, a cellphone, charger and documentation.
Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to Rotterdam, Netherlands where it will undergo disinfection, Spanish authorities said.
The expected sailing time to Rotterdam is around five days, the cruise company said.
Evacuation and quarantine plans
The Spanish nationals on board will be transferred to a medical facility and quarantined, authorities said. Oceanwide has listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.
Only Spanish nationals will quarantine in Spain, the cruise operator said.
The U.S., the U.K. and the Netherlands have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens. Americans on board will be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska.
Twenty-nine people will be on board the Dutch charter flight, including Dutch nationals and people of other nationalities, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said.
Five French passengers will be repatriated today, and will be in hospital for 72 hours for monitoring, after which they will quarantine at home for 45 days, France's Foreign Ministry said.
U.K. passengers and crew will be hospitalized for observation once they are flown home, British authorities say.
Australia is sending a plane expected to arrive Monday to evacuate its nationals and those from nearby countries like New Zealand, García said. Its plane will be the last to leave Tenerife, she said.
Norway has sent an ambulance plane to Tenerife with personnel trained for the transport of patients with high-risk infections, its Directorate for Civil Protection told public broadcaster NRK.
The ambulance plane is owned by the European Union, but operated by Norway.
Countries monitor suspected cases
British Army medics have parachuted onto the remote south Atlantic territory of Tristan da Cunha, where one of the 221 residents has a suspected case of hantavirus.
The patient was a passenger on the MV Hondius and disembarked last month.
The U.K. defense ministry says a team of six paratroopers and two medical clinicians jumped Saturday from an Royal Air Force transport plane, which also dropped oxygen and medical equipment.
Tristan da Cunha is Britain’s most remote inhabited overseas territory, about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the nearest inhabited island, St. Helena. The group of volcanic islands has no airstrip and is usually accessible only by boat on a six-day voyage from Cape Town, South Africa.
Meanwhile, a Spanish woman in the southeastern province of Alicante suspected of being infected tested negative for hantavirus, Spanish health authorities said Saturday.
The woman was a passenger on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after traveling on the cruise ship.
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Suman Naishadham reported from Madrid. Angela Charlton in Paris, Jill Lawless in London, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, contributed to this report.
