Spain readies to receive cruise ship

Spanish authorities are readying to receive the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak.

The WHO has confirmed six hantavirus cases linked to the ship so far.

US and UK will send planes to evacuate their citizens from the MV Hondius, which is headed for Tenerife, in Spain's Canary Islands.

No passengers with symptoms are left on the cruise ship, according to the cruise company.

Some passengers disembarked from the ship before the infection was reported and countries around the world have raced to trace them and people they came into contact with.

The WHO anticipates that more cases might emerge but still deems the overall risk as low and dissimilar to COVID-19.

Stay with us for the latest news on the MV Hondius hantavirus outbreak:
Spain PM Sanchez to meet WHO chief ahead of evacuations
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is to meet with WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Saturday, Sanchez's office said.

The meeting is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m.

local time (1500 UTC).

Tedros was set to visit Tenerife in the Canary Islands ahead of the arrival of a Dutch-flagged ship facing a hantavirus outbreak from which over 140 passengers are to be evacuated.

WHO chief to assist in Tenerife evacuations — Spanish authorities
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is to visit Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands to assist in evacuation efforts from a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak, Spanish authorities said.

The WHO secretary-general is set to assist authorities in ensuring "coordination between administrations, health control" and in applying " planned surveillance and response protocols," Spanish ministry sources were cited by the AFP news agency as saying.

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is to arrive in Tenerife on Sunday.

The WHO has said that the risk to the general public from the outbreak is low, as the hantavirus is not highly contagious in human-to-human transmission.

There have been six confirmed cases of hantavirus linked to the ship, which is carrying over 140 passengers.

What to know about Hantavirus cases if you're joining us on Saturday
Spanish authorities are preparing to receive more than 140 passengers and crew onboard a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship headed for the Canary Islands, where health officials say they will perform careful evacuations.

The vessel is expected to arrive Sunday at the Spanish island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa.

Both the US and the UK have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ship.

Various health bodies around the world have been making sure that people are aware of the processes going into tracing and tracking people linked to the cruise ship.

There have been six confirmed cases of hantavirus linked to the ship, and all six have been confirmed as Andes virus, a type of hantavirus.

Spain said health officials were monitoring a person who was isolating after reporting symptoms.

A Dutch flight attendant tested negative after she was suspected of infection.

Three people have died since the vessel departed Argentina last month, while others have been evacuated from the ship for medical treatment.

But it's important to note that not all deaths have been confirmed as cases of hantavirus infection.

Four patients remain hospitalized ​in South Africa, the Netherlands and Switzerland, while a suspected case sent to Germany tested negative.

Six hantavirus cases confirmed by testing, WHO says
The World Health Organization updated the number of confirmed hantavirus cases on Friday, reporting six confirmed cases out of eight suspected cases so far.

"Six cases were confirmed in the laboratory as hantavirus infections, all identified as being due to the Andes virus, known to be transmissible between humans," the WHO said in a statement in French.

KLM flight attendant tests negative
A flight attendant on Dutch flag carrier KLM who was suspected of having hantavirus, after coming into contact with an infected passenger from the cruise ship and later showed mild symptoms, has tested negative, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Friday.

The flight attendant came into contact with a Dutch woman, the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak while she was briefly on a plane bound from Johannesburg to the Netherlands on April 25.

The woman was removed before take-off and later died at the hospital.

Lindmeier said the flight attendant testing negative was "good news," as an example of someone who came into contact with an infected person and still not catch the virus.

"It's not spreading anything close to how Covid was spreading," he added.

UN health body says virus risk remains low
The WHO insisted on Friday that the hantavirus outbreak posed a minimal risk to the general public.

"This is a dangerous virus, but only to the person who's really infected, and the risk to the general population remains absolutely low," WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters.

A picture was emerging from MV Hondius where "even those who have been sharing cabins don't seem to be both infected in some cases", when one has fallen sick, he added.

"The virus is not that contagious that it easily jumps from person to person," Lindmeier said.

The WHO said Friday there were five confirmed and three suspected cases of the virus.

There are no suspected cases remaining on the ship.

Spanish ministry sources said Friday that World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will be on the ground in Tenerife on Saturday "to ensure coordination between administrations, health control, and the application of the planned surveillance and response protocols."
Woman in Spain in isolation over suspected infection
Spanish authorities said Friday they were monitoring a woman who was on the same flight as a Dutch woman who contracted the Hantavirus aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship and later died.

The Dutch woman was the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak on the Hondius.

Airline KLM said on Wednesday that she had briefly been on a plane bound from Johannesburg to the Netherlands on April 25, but she was removed before take-off.

She died the next day in a Johannesburg hospital and later tested positive for the virus.

"We must say this is a pretty unlikely case," as the woman was seated two rows away from the Dutch woman on the KLM flight, Padilla said.

She is now in "an isolation room" in a hospital, which carried out a PCR test that will be analyzed and whose results "we hope to have in the first 24 hours," Padilla added.

Hantavirus patients not likely infected in southern province: Argentine officials
Argentine health officials say it's highly unlikely passengers aboard the Hondius cruise ship were infected with the hantavirus in Argentina 's southernmost province of Tierra del ​Fuego.

Juan ​Petrina, ‌director of epidemiology and environmental health for the province, ‌told a press conference on Friday that the conclusion was based on the time frame between when the patients were in the province and the onset of symptoms.

"The calculations ​don't add up for ​them to ‌have been infected in our province ...

the ​possibility ⁠is practically nil," Petrina said.

The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, a city on Argentina's southern tip, on April 1.

The cruise ship then headed across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde.

During the voyage, a number of passengers became infected with the hantavirus.

Three subsequently died.

It's not clear where the virus came from.

Argentine investigators suspect a Dutch couple may have become infected while on a bird-watching trip before they boarded the cruise ship in Argentina.

US plans evacuation flight for Americans on hantavirus ship
The US says it is organizing an evacuation flight for American nationals on a cruise ship hit by an outbreak of hantavirus .

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is currently on its way to the Canary Islands , where it is expected to arrive on Sunday morning.

"The Department of ​State ‌is closely tracking the hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship ‌in the Atlantic Ocean and maintaining ‌close ​contact with the cruise ship staff, Americans on board, and US and international ​health authorities," a US State Department spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said a repatriation flight is being arranged, and that the department is ready to provide consular assistance to Americans on board as soon as the ship reaches the island of Tenerife.

There are 17 US citizens among the more than 140 passengers aboard the ship, according to cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions.

MV Hondius heads to Canaries amid hantavirus tracing efforts
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Spain: Hantavirus evacuation must happen Sunday-Monday due to weather
"That same day, we will have planes available and will be able to start getting these people onto the planes," Cabinet minister Angel Victor Torres told journalists.

Separately, the Spanish archipelago's regional government said adverse weather conditions meant the evacuation had to happen swiftly.

"The only window of opportunity we have to carry out this operation is around 12 o'clock on Sunday morning and until conditions change from Monday," regional government spokesman Alfonso Cabello told reporters.

He said failure to get passengers out in that window could mean the ship will have to leave again.

The MV Hondius is scheduled to reach the port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife on Sunday morning.

Nearly 150 people from more than 20 countries are still on board the vessel.

Spanish authorities have said the ship will not be allowed to dock in Tenerife.

Instead, it will anchor off shore, with passengers transferred to the port by a smaller boat before being taken to the airport by bus.

Hantavirus testing and contact tracing continues: What's the latest?

Spanish authorities say a 32-year-old woman from Alicante has symptoms consistent with a hantavirus infection and is being tested.

The woman was on board the same flight as a Dutch woman who was on the MV Hondius cruise ship and later died from the virus.

Authorities said the woman is displaying "mild respiratory symptoms" and has been placed in isolation in hospital.

Secretary of State ​for Health ‌Javier Padilla said the test results were expected within 24 hours.

He said the woman had been sitting two rows behind the Dutch passenger — the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak — who was briefly on a Netherlands-bound plane from Johannesburg on April 25, but was removed before take-off.

She later died in a Johannesburg hospital.

A flight attendant from KLM who came into contact with the same infected passenger and later showed mild symptoms has tested negative, the WHO said Friday.

KLM said Dutch health authorities were contacting people on the flight "as a precaution."
Three passengers aboard the Hondius cruise ship died after contracting what experts have identified as the Andes strain of the hantavirus — a version that can spread from human to human, but typically only after close contact.

Countries around the world are currently tracking passengers who were on the ship in a bid to prevent the virus from spreading further.

Third British infection suspected
Another suspected case of the virus was identified in a British national on the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha on Friday.

The British health security agency did not disclose further details.

The Hondius made a stop at the remote island on April 15.

Two other British nationals who were on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus and are being treated in hospital in the Netherlands and South Africa.

No evidence of hantavirus in German case
A woman who was transferred to a hospital in the German city of Düsseldorf is showing no signs of a hantavirus infection.

The 65-year-old cruise ship passenger was picked up on Wednesday on the Atlantic Island of Cape Verde because she had been in close contact with another passenger who later died.

She was transferred to Düsseldorf for testing after being flown to the Netherlands.

The hospital said tests thus far had failed to detect the hantavirus, but that protective measures will remain in place because it can take "several weeks" for symptoms to appear.

Singapore residents test negative
Meanwhile, two Singaporean residents who were on the MV Hondius have tested negative for the virus.

The two men, aged 65 and 67, disembarked from the ship in St Helena and were on the same flight as a confirmed hantavirus case to Johannesburg on April 25.

Singapore's Communicable Diseases Agency said they would be quarantined as a precaution for 30 days and will undergo further testing before being released.

WATCH: Hantavirus — Your questions answered
Hantavirus-affected cruise ship due to dock in Tenerife
Spanish authorities are preparing to receive more than 140 passengers and crew members from the cruise ship affected by the hantavirus outbreak.

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is due to arrive in Tenerife in the Canary Islands this weekend after sailing in from the Atlantic.

Emergency services say the ship will dock in a fully isolated, cordoned-off area, with evacuations carried out under carefully controlled conditions.

At least three passengers have died, though officials stress the risk to the wider public remains low.

No one currently on board is showing symptoms.

Hantavirus: What we know so far
Health authorities are racing to contain an outbreak of the hantavirus after the World Health Organization said that five confirmed infections had been identified among people connected to the MV Hondius.

Three people, a Dutch couple and a German national, have died since the cruise ship departed Argentina last month.

Singapore's Communicable Diseases Agency said it isolated two residents linked to the ship.

President Donald Trump told reporters that he was briefed on the virus and was hopeful that it was under control.

"It's very much, we hope, under control," he said.

Asked whether Americans should be concerned about any ‌spread of the ​virus, Trump replied: "I hope not." He also said, without elaborating, that a report on the virus was expected on Friday.

The vessel is now headed to Spain's Canary Islands.

Chile says deceased passengers could not have caught hantavirus there
Chile 's Health Ministry has said that two of the deceased hantavirus patients could not have contracted the disease while in the country.

The government in Santiago said that the two people visited the country too long ago for Chile to be a plausible point of infection.

The Dutch married couple traveled first to Argentina, then through Chile and Uruguay, before returning to Argentina on March 27 to board the ship on April 1, according to Argentine officials.

They had entered Chile on January 7.

Chile's Health Ministry said in a statement that the pair traveled in the country "during a period that does not correspond to the incubation time, so exposure to the virus would not have occurred in our country."
The incubation time — the period between contracting an infection and displaying symptoms — can vary quite considerably with hantaviruses, but the German Institute for Public Health says the first symptoms usually appear two to four weeks after being infected, or in exceptional cases after as many as 60 days.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday said the incubation period could be up to six weeks.

Chile said its last documented case of human-to-human transmission of the Andes virus was in 2019.