Overview
- Passengers from the MV Hondius began disembarking Sunday at Granadilla, transferring by small boats to shore and then by sealed buses to Tenerife Sur airport for repatriation flights.
- WHO has confirmed six hantavirus cases linked to the voyage and three deaths, with several patients still hospitalized in South Africa, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
- Spain is moving 14 of its citizens to Madrid’s Gómez Ulla military hospital for quarantine, and U.S. health officials said 17 Americans will be evaluated at the Nebraska National Quarantine Unit before home monitoring for 42 days.
- WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is on site and said the risk to the public is low and the crisis is not another COVID, as authorities keep the ship at anchor and enforce a security perimeter.
- Investigators are tracing an Andes-lineage source likely tied to exposure in South America, and a skeleton crew will sail the vessel to the Netherlands for disinfection after passenger repatriations.