Hantavirus outbreak prompts mass evacuation from MV Hondius in Tenerife

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:02]Dozens of passengers and crew members have begun leaving the MV Hondius cruise ship docked off Tenerife following a hantavirus outbreak that has killed three people and infected several others.

[00:00:15]The vessel arrived in the Canary Islands carrying more than 140 people from 23 countries after spending days stranded off Cape Verde.

[00:00:26]Spanish authorities launched a large international evacuation effort with charter and government flights transporting passengers to countries including the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, and the United States.

[00:00:46]British passengers were transferred to Arrowe Park Hospital near Liverpool for an initial isolation period while other countries introduced their own quarantine and testing measures.

[00:00:58]Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said nearly 100 passengers from 19 nationalities had already disembarked by Sunday evening.

[00:01:09]French authorities also confirmed that one passenger developed symptoms during a repatriation flight to Paris and was taken to hospital for testing.

[00:01:20]Officials say the outbreak involves the Andes strain of hantavirus, a rodent-borne virus found in parts of South America and one of the few strains capable of limited person-to-person transmission.

[00:01:35]The World Health Organization has sought to calm fears of a wider outbreak stressing that hantavirus does not spread in the same way as COVID-19.

[00:01:47]This is not COVID. The average person does not need to be worried about hantavirus here in this setting. These folks are being managed very carefully, very deliberately by the Spanish authorities. They're getting off the ship. They're getting into small boats.

[00:02:00]They're being spaced apart in the boat in the buses so that there's no risk to one another even if one were to become symptomatic. We know that none of them are symptomatic as they have been leaving the ship. They're going straight to their aircraft and they're being taken to their respective national jurisdictions.

[00:02:18]The WHO says passengers were screened before disembarkation and transferred in controlled groups for repatriation flights to their home countries.

[00:02:30]Officials say international contact tracing and monitoring will continue throughout the incubation period, which can last up to 8 weeks.

[00:02:41]While authorities say the overall public risk remains low, contingency plans remain in place in case additional infections emerge after passengers return home.