分类： health

Tensions are running high on the Spanish island of Tenerife this week as local residents and port workers push back against a national government agreement to allow the hantavirus-exposed cruise vessel MV Hondius to disembark its passengers this weekend. The ship, which departed Cape Verde after three infected people were evacuated and local authorities refused it docking access, is heading for Canary Islands waters after the Spanish administration struck a deal with the World Health Organization (WHO) to accept the passengers. The plan has sparked widespread anger and anxiety across the archipelago, amplifying existing frustrations over ongoing migration pressures.\n\nOn Friday, dozens of port workers gathered outside the Canary Islands regional parliament in Santa Cruz de Tenerife to demonstrate against the docking arrangement. Blowing whistles, sounding vuvuzelas and holding signs highlighting their safety concerns, protesters said they have not been given adequate protection or clear information about the vessel’s arrival. Joana Batista, a representative of the local port workers’ union speaking at the rally, said workers were uncomfortable being assigned to the port without special safety protocols when an infected ship was approaching. Some union members have threatened to block the ship’s access to the island if their demands for full protection and transparency are not met. Batista added that while the ship may be allowed to dock, it must do so with all necessary public health safeguards in place, and local residents deserve full clarity on passenger movement and potential risks to the community.\n\nFor many local residents, the arrival of the cruise ship has compounded long-simmering frustration over the Canary Islands’ status as a primary entry point for thousands of undocumented migrants arriving from North and West Africa. Nutritionist María de la Luz Sedeño, who observed the protest, called the ship’s planned arrival the “last straw” for local residents tired of bearing the brunt of unaddressed international crises. While some Canary islanders take pride in welcoming migrant arrivals, others share Sedeño’s frustration, and the crisis has become a unifying point of discontent for many who feel the national government ignores local input. According to NGO Caminando Fronteras, more than 3,000 people died attempting to reach the Canary Islands in 2025, most traveling in unsafe makeshift dinghies. The ongoing migration situation will draw global attention next month when Pope Leo is scheduled to visit the islands to meet with migrants and aid organizations. Sedeño also criticized the central government for overriding clear opposition to the cruise ship’s arrival from Canary Islands regional president Fernando Clavijo, saying “the people here are not being listened to.”\n\nIn response to accusations of overreach and lack of transparency, the Socialist-led national government has released full details of its public health plan for the vessel’s arrival. Instead of docking directly at a populated Tenerife port, the MV Hondius will anchor offshore, and passengers will be transported via ferry to the remote Granadilla industrial port in the island’s southeast, far from residential neighborhoods. After disembarkation, all foreign passengers will be immediately repatriated, while the 14 Spanish nationals on board will be transferred to Madrid for quarantine. Virginia Barcones, head of Spain’s civil protection agency, emphasized that authorities have taken all steps to ensure no contact between passengers and local residents, guaranteeing that local communities will be “absolutely and completely protected.”\n\nThe government’s detailed plan has eased concerns for some Tenerife residents. Marialaina Retina Fernández, a local pensioner, said she feels calmer now that clear information has been released. Noting that the Canary Islands have access to high-quality local healthcare, she expressed cautious acceptance of the temporary presence of the ship’s passengers. “It’s not ideal that they all end up coming here, but if the authorities say they’ll do everything possible to make sure nobody gets infected, let’s hope that’s how it is,” she said.\n\nDespite the government’s public health safeguards, far-right party Vox has sought to politicalize the issue by drawing parallels between the cruise ship arrival and undocumented migrant arrivals. Meanwhile, many local residents say the arrival of a multi-national ship with a viral outbreak brings unwanted flashbacks to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the first confirmed COVID case in Spain was a German tourist on nearby La Gomera, followed by the quarantine of 1,000 hotel guests and staff on Tenerife. Both the WHO and the Spanish government have explicitly pushed back on comparisons to the COVID-19 pandemic, downplaying the epidemiological risks of the current hantavirus situation. Still, many residents remain on edge. Retina Fernández, for her part, framed the situation as just another crisis the Canary Islands have been forced to manage, noting “we’re used to all sorts of problems arriving here, and you can see that we’re good at managing these situations.”

As the cruise ship MV Hondius, hit by an outbreak of hantavirus, steams toward the Spanish port of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, a surprising tension has emerged among its 140+ passengers and crew. For the Spanish nationals on board, anxiety stems not from the risk of contracting the virus itself, but from the hostile public reception they expect to face once they set foot on land. In exclusive phone interviews with the Associated Press on Friday, two anonymous Spanish passengers — a man and a woman — detailed the vitriol and misinformation spreading across public platforms about the ship and those aboard.

Sensationalized mainstream coverage and inflammatory social media content, including memes calling for the vessel to be sunk, have painted passengers as dangerous viral vectors to be shunned. “You go onto social media – they want to dynamite the boat. They want to sink the boat,” the male passenger told AP. “You see what’s out there and you realize you’re heading into the eye of a hurricane,” the female passenger added. “Many people forget that in here there are more than 140 passengers. In reality, there are 140 human beings.” Both requested anonymity out of fear of further backlash once they disembark, currently scheduled as early as Sunday.

This wave of public panic has echoes of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when viral outbreaks on cruise ships sparked global alarm. But World Health Organization officials have repeatedly pushed back against misplaced comparisons, stressing that hantavirus poses minimal risk to the general public and this event is not the start of a new global pandemic. “This is very different virus. I want to be unequivocal here,” stated Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s head of epidemic and pandemic preparedness, on Thursday. “This is not the start of a COVID pandemic.”

Unlike SARS-CoV-2, which spreads easily between people, hantavirus is most commonly transmitted to humans through inhalation of particles contaminated by rodent droppings. While the Andes strain detected on the MV Hondius can spread between people in extremely rare cases, the overall risk of widespread transmission remains very low. Despite these clear expert assurances, misinformation and distrust in public health guidance — a trend that took hold during the COVID pandemic — have persisted. A Spanish anti-establishment group called Iustitia Europa, which gained prominence opposing COVID-19 public health restrictions, has publicly called for the MV Hondius to be barred from entering Spanish territorial waters. “The Canary Islands cannot become Europe’s health laboratory … We demand transparency, responsibility, and protection for Spaniards to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past,” the group posted on social media platform X.

Even some regional Spanish politicians have echoed public anxiety, taking a hard defensive stance against the ship’s arrival. Canary Islands regional president Fernando Clavijo told Spanish newspaper El País on Friday that he would not feel at ease until the ship departs Spanish waters and all passengers have reached their designated quarantine sites. Madrid regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso also publicly opposed the decision to transfer 12 Spanish passengers from the ship to a Madrid military hospital for quarantine, as planned by national authorities.

“The public narrative has painted this as a boat of infected people, a boat of multimillionaires, full of rats,” the male passenger on board explained. “Society is in some way contaminated with a lot of noise and a lot of lies.” He did note that he has found some comfort in the Spanish government’s promise of official escorts upon arrival in Tenerife, where port workers held a protest this week over a lack of transparency regarding planned safety protocols. Spanish authorities have clarified that the escorts are standard protocol to maintain isolation requirements, not a measure to protect passengers from violent confrontation.

Contrary to chaotic public portrayals of life on board, daily routines on the MV Hondius have remained calm in the days approaching port. After a team of epidemiologists boarded the ship off the coast of Cape Verde to brief passengers on the actual risks of the outbreak, most have been reassured that human-to-human transmission is extremely rare. Passengers who leave their cabins for common areas follow masking and social distancing rules, spending time reading, attending educational talks, joining early morning exercise groups on the upper decks, or birdwatching — a key activity for many travelers who had embarked on the voyage to photograph wildlife in remote Atlantic regions, not to become the center of a global public health story.

Remarkably, despite the stigma and uncertainty they now face, both Spanish passengers say the experience would not stop them from taking another cruise in the future. “For me, personally, traveling is a means to … live out what I’m passionate about — which is observing nature and documenting nature,” the female passenger said. “Of course I would go on a cruise again.”

In an unfolding global public health incident, a cruise ship carrying 140 passengers and crew members, already struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak, is nearing its scheduled arrival at the Spanish island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands early Sunday, prompting coordinated international response preparations. As of current reports, at least three passengers have already succumbed to the virus, with multiple additional people confirmed infected, leaving public health agencies across multiple nations racing to address gaps in critical information about the incident.\n\nHantavirus, a pathogen most commonly transmitted to humans through inhalation of air contaminated with rodent droppings, typically presents symptoms between one and eight weeks after initial exposure. The World Health Organization has assessed that the overall risk of widespread community transmission from this outbreak remains low, but the specific Andes variant linked to the cruise ship cases carries a rare but documented potential for human-to-human spread, raising additional safety concerns.\n\nDespite incremental updates from local authorities and the vessel’s operator, Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions, several core questions about the outbreak remain unanswered, slowing coordinated containment efforts.\n\nFirst, the origin of the outbreak has not been definitively confirmed. Argentine investigators have put forward a preliminary hypothesis that an infected Dutch couple may have contracted the virus during a bird-watching excursion prior to boarding the MV Hondius in Ushuaia, Argentina’s southernmost town, on April 1. Argentina’s Ministry of Health has centered its traceback investigation on Ushuaia, and announced plans to deploy investigative teams to the region in the coming days — though the statement provided to the Associated Press gave no explanation for the planned delay in the team’s arrival. No official body has yet verified where or how the index case acquired the virus.\n\nSecond, the full timeline for what happens next for the remaining passengers and crew on board remains unclear. Spanish emergency authorities are currently on standby to receive the vessel in Tenerife, and confirmed Friday that disembarkation will only proceed once repatriation flights for all people on board are fully arranged, with passengers evacuated via small boats to dedicated buses waiting to transport them directly to airports. The U.S. and U.K. governments have already confirmed they will send dedicated aircraft to retrieve their respective citizens from the Canary Islands, but most other nations have not publicly released their repatriation plans, leaving it unknown how long the remaining people on the ship will need to wait before they can leave. Virginia Barcones, head of Spain’s national emergency services, added that Spanish officials have requested medically equipped aircraft to transport symptomatic passengers, but it remains unconfirmed whether these specialized planes will be available in time.\n\nThird, the full scope of potential exposure remains unaccounted for, with conflicting data sowing confusion. According to Oceanwide Expeditions, the MV Hondius departed Ushuaia on April 1, made two intermediate stops before the outbreak was declared. Six additional passengers boarded at the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, after which the ship stopped at St. Helena, where 30 passengers disembarked — including a Dutch woman and the body of her husband, who had died from the virus on board. The operator says two of those 30 disembarked passengers are believed to be Chileans who boarded at Tristan da Cunha, but their nationalities have not been definitively confirmed. On Friday, a U.K. overseas territories government official confirmed that a Tristan da Cunha resident has been hospitalized with suspected hantavirus symptoms, but it remains unclear whether this person had any contact with the cruise ship. Initial passenger counts provided by the operator were inconsistent: the company first reported 114 passengers departed Argentina with an unlisted number of crew, before updating figures to confirm 61 crew from 12 countries on board, with no clarity on whether any crew changes occurred during the voyage. The operator was forced to correct passenger and nationality counts for those who disembarked at St. Helena after discovering errors in initial reporting, and the final total of people potentially exposed still differs from the estimate provided by the Dutch Foreign Ministry, with no explanation for the discrepancy.\n\nFourth, the full whereabouts of all disembarked passengers and the extent of their potential contacts remain unknown. Many of the passengers who got off at St. Helena continued onward travel to other countries. The Dutch woman whose husband died on board flew to Johannesburg, South Africa, before boarding a flight bound for Amsterdam; she was removed from the flight due to severe illness and later died. Public health officials in South Africa and the Netherlands are currently working to trace every individual who came into contact with the woman during her travels. One flight attendant who developed symptoms after interacting with the woman has already tested negative for hantavirus. Some national governments, including the U.K., have confirmed the locations of their citizens who disembarked early: British health officials say two are self-isolating at home, four remain on St. Helena, and one has been located outside of the U.K. Even so, officials have not disclosed how many additional people these citizens may have been in contact with since leaving the ship, leaving open the possibility of unmonitored exposure.

A major public health investigation is underway following an emerging hantavirus outbreak on the Dutch-operated expedition cruise ship MV Hondius, with British health authorities confirming a third UK national is now suspected to have contracted the virus. The newest suspected case remains on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, where the vessel made a scheduled port stop in mid-April.

To date, five cases of hantavirus have been confirmed across passengers and crew on the ship, and one of those confirmed cases has resulted in death. Two British men have already received formal confirmed diagnoses: one, a retired 56-year-old British police officer and expedition guide named Martin Anstee, was medically evacuated to the Netherlands earlier this week alongside a Dutch crew member and a German passenger, and remains in stable condition. Speaking to the BBC after evacuation, Anstee reported that he is “fine”. The second confirmed British case, a 69-year-old man, was flown to South Africa for intensive care treatment at the end of April, and officials say his condition is improving.

The MV Hondius is on track to dock in the Canary Islands this weekend, where British authorities have arranged a chartered evacuation flight to repatriate all remaining British passengers and crew back to the United Kingdom. While none of the remaining British travelers currently show signs of hantavirus infection, UK public health officials have confirmed that all returnees will be required to isolate for a 45-day period upon arrival in the UK, to prevent potential secondary spread.

According to Oceanwide Expeditions, the operator of the MV Hondius, 30 passengers from 12 countries – including seven British citizens – disembarked the vessel at the South Atlantic island of St Helena on April 24, more than a week before the first confirmed case of hantavirus was reported on May 4. Two of the seven British travelers who disembarked at St Helena have already returned to the UK and are currently self-isolating voluntarily without exhibiting any symptoms. Four others remain on St Helena, where they are monitored regularly by local health authorities, with plans in place to send additional medical support to the remote island. As of Wednesday, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) officials confirmed the seventh British passenger who disembarked at St Helena has not yet been located for contact tracing.

Contact tracing operations are currently active in more than half a dozen countries, tracking down dozens of passengers who left the cruise ship before the outbreak was formally identified, including contacts in Switzerland and the Netherlands. The origin of the outbreak remains unknown, and public health teams have not yet confirmed whether any people outside of the cruise ship’s passenger and crew cohort have been infected.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus noted in a recent press briefing that the first two confirmed cases had completed a bird-watching expedition through Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay before boarding the MV Hondiques, a trip that included visits to areas populated by rat species known to carry hantavirus. To date, three deaths have been linked to the outbreak: the one confirmed hantavirus death was a 69-year-old Dutch woman who disembarked at St Helena on April 24, traveled to South Africa, and died two days later. Two other people – the Dutch woman’s husband, who died on board the ship on April 11, and a German woman who also died while on the vessel – have not been confirmed to have died from hantavirus infection.

Hantavirus is most commonly transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents such as mice and rats, but public health experts working on this outbreak suspect limited human-to-human transmission may have occurred among people in close, prolonged contact on the ship. UKHSA officials emphasized that the virus does not spread through casual everyday contact in public spaces, and person-to-person spread only occurs in rare cases involving extended close exposure. Common symptoms of hantavirus infection include fever, severe fatigue, abdominal pain, vomiting, and shortness of breath, which typically develop between two and four weeks after initial exposure.

In a statement, the World Health Organization categorized the outbreak as a “serious incident” but stressed that the overall risk to the general global public remains low, and the event is not comparable to the widespread, easily transmissible Covid-19 pandemic.