FULL BRIEFING: WHO Officials Gives Urgent Update on Hantavirus Cruise Ship Cluster Situation | AR14

Ajouté : 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]is in the process where the passenger and the crew from from the Netherlands.

[00:00:04]So, more operations will come during the day until sunset today. So, once the sunset comes, the operations will stop and they will restart tomorrow early in the morning.

[00:00:16]So, yeah, >> So, it's not it's not everybody. Sorry, Diana. So, it's not everybody yet. As you said, it's the passengers and some some passengers and some crew from Spain, France, Canada, and the Netherlands, and this is continuing tomorrow.

[00:00:30]Yes, so about 40 46 people will be disembarking today and right now have disembarked already today and the process will continue until the the end of the day and will restart tomorrow and is expected to end by the end of the day tomorrow.

[00:00:51]And about crew, um some people there's been a little bit of confusion. Can you just clarify some crew are off and some crew will be staying on the ship?

[00:00:59]Yes, absolutely because the ship needs to go back to the to the original port in the Netherlands. So, approximately 30 members of the crew will continue in the cruise ship up to the Netherlands accompanied by a medical team.

[00:01:14]Um so, Diana, you have been alongside Dr. Tedros today. You've been helping to translate some of the discussions so that he's fully he's in the meetings and he's fully hearing and understanding and able to input on those discussions today.

[00:01:27]Uh without asking for details of of those discussions which are closed, those planning discussions. Can you just tell me what the what the mood has been for the in the meetings that you've been in, what the sense you have gotten from from everyone is?

[00:01:40]No, I I guess most of the the sense here is the how proud we all are of the of the solidarity and the work that has been done by the national authorities and coordinating with the other countries from the EU. We have the European CDC here. We have several partners here. We have the EU Commission. So, it's incredible to see all the coordination and how things are currently going according to plan.

[00:02:10]Thanks, Diana. Stay on the line. I want to come back to you later for any further input and also to ask you at the very end if you could make some points in Spanish because I know the Spanish-speaking world is particularly interested in this whole outbreak for for a variety of reasons. Dr. Van Kerkhove, I wanted to come to you because one of the one of the points of confusion is people have been following those who have been following closely understand that this is a virus that has a relatively long incubation period meaning the person can have been exposed to the virus, the virus can be in their body, but they don't get sick until 6 to 8 weeks longer. And so, people are asking, well, how do you make sure that for the next period of time as they return to their families, as they transit and return to their families, that they don't potentially obviously and willingly pass on the disease to someone else. So, what has the WHO recommended and what's in place? Yeah, thanks very much. So, as like Diana has said and like we have explained, it's a very coordinated action to get the passengers and the crew safely home.

[00:03:08]They're very anxious to get home. We understand that completely. So, there are many different steps that are underway. So, first is the medical check on board. So, we just check to see if anybody has any symptoms, anyone is feeling unwell. If there is anyone that's unwell, that has symptoms, they will be medevac home. They won't actually go on this on the same plane as the others.

[00:03:27]And then at the home country where the passengers and the crew end up, and all of this is is being coordinated, our recommendation is for active follow-up, which means daily monitoring of checks in terms of checking for fever, checking for any types of symptoms, and that they be in either home quarantine or that they be in an in-facility quarantine. And our recommendation is for 42 days. And that's basically double um the incubation period that we have or the longest of the incubation period that we have. I think I just misspoke. It's actually up to that I did cuz I'm thinking I'm sorry I'm doing the math here. So no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So it's it's actually the for the full up to 6 weeks. So for the Andes virus, we do know for Hanta viruses it can go up to 8 weeks, but for the Andes virus it's really 6 weeks. So let me be very clear.

[00:04:13]Let me say that again. So our recommendations for the passengers and the crew who are on board is that they have active monitoring and follow-up with which means daily health checks um either at home or in a specialized facility. We are leaving this up to the countries themselves to actually develop their own policies, but our recommendations are very clear. And this is really a a cautionary approach to make sure that we don't uh have any opportunities for this virus to pass from others. We've also recommending when they when they get off the boat and when they are around others to be wearing a respirator um for that extra layer of protection. And a respirator is? It's a FFP2 FFP2 or an N95 um which has to be fit tested and it has to quite quite a lot of coverage uh over the over the face and the mouth of the nose and the mouth. Yeah. So what happens next?

[00:05:00]That's what I'll come to you for. I know that WHO has a team of at least eight people on the ground. So our director general as we've said, he's been on press conferences. You can you can watch him. Um Diana who's leading on health ops, which is a lot of the coordination between our colleagues and the Spanish authorities. We have an epidemiologist.

[00:05:17]We have a points of entry specialist at public health specialist who's actually was on the boat um and is evacuating onwards to the Netherlands. And as I understand our colleague will be um under quarantine as well because he may have been exposed. And um I think that's important to note. I have an infection prevention and control specialist and my colleagues in communication. So that's at least eight WHO colleagues who are itinerary fit at the moment. So to you, Maria.

[00:05:44]>> Yes. What So what are happening what what will continue to happen um is the repatriation of the the passengers and the crew. So, so far the planes that have taken off Spain, France, and Canada.

[00:05:57]The repatriation of the first flight to the Netherlands is in progress right now. There are a number of other flights that are planned today. Turkey, UK, Ireland, US. All of that may change but because we have to see which planes are on the tarmac all of it is being coordinated on the ground in real time.

[00:06:15]So, some of that may change. That will happen up till 7:00 8:00 tonight and then they will restart again tomorrow.

[00:06:21]The goal is to have all of the passengers and the crew with the exception of 30 crew members remaining on board to finish the repatriation tomorrow by 7:00 p.m. and then the boat will continue on. The plan is for another health professional to board the boat.

[00:06:36]We believe it will be a nurse from from the Netherlands to support the 30 remaining crew who will travel on to the Netherlands which will take a few more days. And then once it docks in the Netherlands, there will be a full disinfection of the boat. While I have the floor just to say also in addition to what's happening in Tenerife, there's a lot of active follow-up in South Africa from some of the contacts who cared for the patients, the woman who died unfortunately in Johannesburg, the person who is in ICU again doing better.

[00:07:05]There's a lot of contact tracing you know for the people who met who cared for them. Testing that is ongoing. Those tests have come back negative so far.

[00:07:13]The numbers may change. You know, like we said the risk to the general public, to the people in the Canary Island is low but we are actively following up because that incubation period is so long up to up to 6 weeks. There was today also British medics who actually parachuted in to one of the British overseas territory to care for a gentleman who was unwell.

[00:07:35]It's a very very remote island in the Pacific. It takes 2 weeks to get there by boat. There's no runway. So, it's actually the only way that they can get people in. So, it's a pretty massive operation to make sure that those who are infected or might be infected are cared for appropriately.

[00:07:52]And before you hand it back to Diana, I just want to say this is what WHO does.

[00:07:56]There's so much I've got a lot of questions about this thing. Why is so much attention to this? Why is so much attention to this hantavirus? And of course, because we are concerned it's an infectious disease. While the risk is low to the general public, there's a lot of people that are scared. There's a lot of people that are thinking this is the next COVID. It is not the next COVID.

[00:08:14]But the amount of attention that our teams have put into this, including by our Director-General, using the International Health Regulations to have people and countries communicate. This is what we do every day. It's receiving media attention today, but this is something that we do. And I think Diana is saying, you know, the the solidarity and how proud people are is really something that I think should be celebrated. While we want this to all happen very safely and end as quickly as possible, um we're really proud of the collaboration from countries, the support of of Spain and the Netherlands and many, many others. And of course, our colleagues.

[00:08:48]Thank you.

[00:08:50]Coming back to you, Diana. I just wanted to I'm going to ask you two questions.

[00:08:53]So, first I'm going to ask you again how you felt this morning. I saw photographs when the boat was on the horizon, and I'm not even there, and I felt really emotional. I felt a lot of feeling for the the boat full of people and what they've gone through as well, the the people they've lost, the stress they've been facing. Enough about me. I just wanted to hear from you what what you felt when when you saw that ship on the horizon.

[00:09:18]Thank you very much, Nica.

[00:09:20]No, absolutely. We were we were all looking at the at the ship and and seeing how the passengers were coming and their happiness of being finally on land was was really a moment to celebrate. Also, the Spanish authorities and everyone in the ground uh were very uh very kind and welcoming to to all the passengers and and the crew. So, it was really exciting because some of it has been so much planning and so much coordination behind the scenes that when you when you actually start implementing all the work on the field is there is some anxiety also uh to to see how everything is going to turn out. So, once the first uh disembarking of the passengers and the crew started, then it was kind of a a relief and a and a bit of joy that everything was going according to plan.

[00:10:10]But, it has been great seeing all the all the all the buses coming out and people really happy to to be on land again and and being repatriated.

[00:10:21]That's so nice to hear. Um there's not a lot of footage of this. I I think very intentionally the idea was to keep the privacy to maintain the privacy of uh these passengers and the crew as well.

[00:10:31]And and now uh Diana, I'll ask you to speak in Spanish. I think we've made our points here, but because of the interest as I mentioned earlier, por favor.

[00:10:46]Claro que sí, Nica. Tu español está muy bien.

[00:10:49]Bueno, buenas tardes a todos. Quería hacer un un reporte de las operaciones que están actualmente eh aquí en el campo. Estoy reportando desde desde Tenerife, donde está el crucero eh que eh desembarque el desembarque. Eh las operaciones se iniciaron a las 7:30 de la mañana con las eh las autoridades del puerto, las autoridades sanitarias del puerto evaluando la salud de los pasajeros. Todos los pasajeros estaban eh asintomáticos, y se inició el desembarco de cada una de las personas y los tripulantes del del crucero eh país por país. Se iniciaron con los 14 personas de de España. Luego se Francia el de eh pasajeros Holanda está en proceso.

[00:11:48]más operaciones bien están en planeadas eh se espera que los aviones o las eh la la tripulación de y los pasajeros del Reino Unido Estados Unidos y otros continúen. Todo va a continuar hasta el final del día, hasta que se ponga el sol. Y eh los pasajeros que no puedan desembarcar hoy las tripulantes que no puedan desembarcar hoy se hará el proceso mañana.

[00:12:16]Eh lo planeado es que todo el proceso termine eh a las 7 de la noche mañana y solo quedarán 30 tripulantes del crucero que son los encargados de llevar el barco hasta el puerto eh de origen en en Holanda y Países Bajos. Eh los protocolos de la OMS para también lo que la doctora María Van Kerkhove mencionó los protocolos de que estamos recomendando es un seguimiento estricto por 42 días el periodo de incubación de del el hantavirus es eh de de hasta 6 semanas y pues el periodo de incubación es el tiempo entre la infección puede llegar a aparecer los síntomas puede ser un poco más corto, un poco más largo pero 42 días es lo máximo que se ha encontrado por eso la recomendación de los 42 días se está se está recomendando el uso de de mascarillas se está recomendando eh por supuesto el lavado de manos disminuir los contactos cercanos con otras personas hay algunos países que lo están recomendando que lo quieren hacer en el hospital, pero la recomendación es limitar contacto para prevenir eh más contagios eh adicionales.

[00:13:29]Eh >> That's it from my side, Nika. Over to you.

[00:13:35]Muchas gracias. Muchas gracias, Diana.

[00:13:37]We're We're proud of you. We're proud of our colleagues and of the of the international cooperation that's helping people in need.

[00:13:45]So, that's it from our side. I hope you have found it informative to hear from Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, Director, Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Management, from Tenerife, Dr. Diana Rojas Alvarez, our health operations lead there in Tenerife, and the head for Emerging Zoonotic Diseases Unit at the moment.

[00:14:03]Maria, I'd like to hand over you over to you for the last word. Yeah, so thank you very much, Nika, for doing this and thanks to all the team in the field.

[00:14:11]While I have the floor, can I just say happy Mother's Day to all of the incredible moms out there, my mom included. But, there are a lot of women, obviously, that are working on this response itself, making incredible sacrifices, and I just wanted to, because it's Mother's Day, say happy Mother's Day.

[00:14:26]That's it, everyone. Thanks again.

[00:14:28]Thanks for tuning in.