WHO seeks to reassure ‘worried’ Tenerife residents over arrival of hantavirus-hit ship

The MV Hondius cruise ship is heading to Tenerife (Misper Apawu/AP)

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has sought to reassure “worried” Tenerife residents they will not encounter passengers of a hantavirus-hit cruise ship set to dock on the island.

The UN agency said there had been six confirmed hantavirus cases linked to the MV Hondius ship and that four patients were currently in hospital.

It added that a total of eight cases, including three deaths, had been reported – with one suspected case being reclassified after testing negative for hantavirus.

Workers set up temporary shelters in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive in Tenerife (Manu Fernandez/AP)

The WHO said on Saturday that there were currently no symptomatic passengers on board the ship.

In a letter addressed to the people of Tenerife, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he knew residents were “worried”.

The Ethiopian public health official said the virus was “serious” but the outbreak was “not another Covid” and the “current public health risk from hantavirus remains low”.

He added: “Spain’s authorities have prepared a careful, step-by-step plan: passengers will be ferried ashore at the industrial port of Granadilla, far from residential areas, in sealed, guarded vehicles, through a completely cordoned-off corridor, and repatriated directly to their home countries.

“You will not encounter them. Your families will not encounter them.

“Nearly 150 people from 23 countries have been at sea for weeks, some of them grieving, all of them frightened, all of them longing for home.

“Tenerife has been chosen because it has the medical capacity, the infrastructure, and the humanity to help them reach safety.”

Two British men are currently being treated for hantavirus in the Netherlands and Johannesburg, South Africa, while a third British man with symptoms is being cared for on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha.

The outbreak has been connected to a birdwatching expedition in Argentina which two of the passengers went on before boarding the ship.