The head of the World Health Organization arrived on the Canary Islands Saturday and attempted to reassure locals petrified about the overnight arrival of the hantavirus-infected MV Hondius.
“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who will supervise the evacuation of the ship’s 147 passengers Sunday.
“The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment. But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID.”
Crew members of the MV Hondius wait to speak to epidemiologists. APAfter protests from furious residents and a dramatic week-long showdown between the conservative local leader and Spain’s socialist prime minister, who followed WHO orders to let the cursed ship in, officials decided to only allow the vessel to anchor at a distance from the port on the island of Tenerife.
Instead, hazmat-clad health teams will swarm aboard to evaluate the passengers, and some of the 60 crew, who will be transferred, donned in full protective garb, to a cordoned-off section of the port in small boats five people at a time.
From there, passengers are being bussed to the airport, with evacuations to begin within 24 hours of the ship’s arrival.
The vessel was estimated to arrive near the port of Granadilla, on the island of Tenerife, at 5:30 a.m. local time Sunday, Oceanwide Expeditions said.
Medical workers awaited the passengers from the MV Hondius Friday. Anadolu via Getty Images
The 17 Americans will be taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha to quarantine. University of Nebraska Medical CenterThe 14 Spanish nationals aboard are being evacuated first and flown to a military hospital in Madrid to quarantine.
A team of epidemiologists and medical professionals deployed by the Centers for Disease Control is escorting the 17 Americans on board the ship.
The agency told doctors in the United States to prepare for potential imported cases of the hantavirus linked to the rat virus-stricken cruise ship.
A microscopic image of liver tissue specimen taken from a hantavirus patient. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/AFP via Getty ImagesIn an alert issued Saturday, the CDC warned early symptoms could mimic the flu and that testing should be repeated in the first 72 hours — while insisting the risk of broad spread to the US was still “extremely unlikely at this time.”
The US Department of State is chartering a government medical repatriation flight that will bring the 17 American passengers to the Air Force One Base in Omaha, Nebraska.
From there, they are being transported to the National Quarantine Center at the University of Nebraska, for another screening. But they won’t be tested for hantavirus or forced to isolate unless they’re symptomatic.
The stricken ship will not be allowed to dock when it arrives at the Canary Islands. REUTERS
Passengers embarked on the doomed cruise April 1.
“We are not quarantining anybody,” a CDC official told ABC on Saturday.
Three people have died, including Dutch ornithologists Leo and Mirjam Schilperoord and a German passenger.
The Schilperoords’ bodies have been repatriated to the Netherlands, but the German woman’s body remains on the ship, and will stay aboard with a handful of crew members after Sunday.
They will continue the voyage to the Netherlands, from where the body will be repatriated and the ship disinfected.
A passenger takes a photo of the empty deck on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship on May 6, 2026. APFive other cases have been confirmed by the WHO so far, with more suspected. The confirmed cases include three passengers airlifted from Cape Verde to the Netherlands on May 6, including 56-year-old British crew member Martin Antsee, who remain in the hospital as of Saturday.
Another was a 69-year-old British man, a passenger, who was airlifted from Ascension Island on April 27 to an intensive care unit in Johannesburg — along with his American partner, who is reportedly asymptomatic.
United Kingdom authorities confirmed Friday that a local on the remote island of Tristan da Cunha — where the ship made its first scheduled stop on April 15 — was being treated for a suspected case of the rodent-borne virus.
A passenger gets some water from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship. APHantavirus – the disease that killed Gene Hackman’s wife Betsy Arakawa – is usually spread through rodent droppings, but this strain, the Andes virus, can be spread between people and carries a mortality rate of nearly 40%.
Argentina experienced a spike in cases last year, logging 86 infections and 28 deaths in 2025 — one of its deadliest tallies in years, with wildfires in Patagonia suspected of pushing rodents closer to towns.
In January, the country’s National Epidemiological Bulletin determined that “with a total of 58 confirmed cases, the country is at the outbreak threshold” for hantavirus.
Argentinian officials dispatched a team to the city of Ushuaia this week to capture and analyze rat samples for the virus.
Additional reporting by Adry Torres
