This Sunday marked one of the most important phases in the crisis unleashed by the discovery of a hantavirus outbreak on the luxury cruise ship MV Hondius, reported to the world by the WHO last May 2. Finally, after drifting in the Atlantic Ocean, the vessel arrived in the Canary Islands, despite resistance from its government, and passengers began to be repatriated by air.
The first passengers to disembark from what is now known as “the hantavirus cruise ship” were the Spaniards, who were first given personal protective equipment before being boarded onto a military plane that will take them to Madrid, where they will be transferred to the Gomez Ulla Hospital. “The journey from the Port of Granadilla de Abona to Tenerife South-Reina Sofia Airport, lasting around 12 minutes, was made wearing only masks,” El Periodico reported.
Resistance from the Canary Islands government
“Everything happened relatively quickly from the moment they got off the ship: transfer by launches to the dock and, once there, directly to the bubble vehicle of the Military Emergencies Unit (UME),” the newspaper detailed, adding that although the boarding of passengers from the Netherlands had been scheduled after the Spaniards, in the end passengers from France were evacuated first and then those from Canada. “Later this Sunday afternoon, flights to Ireland and the United States are expected to depart, according to Health Minister Monica Garcia.”
In that way, a crisis that kept the world on edge began to be resolved, mainly because of outbreaks of misinformation wrongly announcing that the hantavirus marked the beginning of a global health crisis like the one caused by Covid-19. Nothing could be further from reality. Those kinds of ideas were what produced, for example, the resistance of the president of the Canary Islands government, Fernando Clavijo, who announced the previous day to the media his intention not to authorize the docking of the vessel.
In those statements, Clavijo said: “Given that rodents can be a vector of contagion for the virus, we are concerned that during the night some rodent could come ashore and endanger the safety of Canary Islanders.” But the idea that a rodent could swim off the ship had already been ruled out by a report from the Ministry of Health accessed by the Spanish newspaper El Pais, which makes clear that there is no precedent for a similar episode and that, because of the characteristics of the small mammal, which usually inhabits forested areas, the risk is nonexistent.
In addition, the document insists that inspections carried out so far on the ship have ruled out the presence of rodents aboard.
The authority of the Spanish government prevailed
Despite the resistance of the president of the Canary Islands, the government of Spain prevailed. The director general of the Merchant Marine, Ana Nunez Velasco, invoked Article 299 of the Consolidated Text of the Law on State Ports and the Merchant Marine, and imposed acceptance of the cruise ship. That resolution states that “there is a need for healthcare assistance on board, with operational limitations to keeping people on the vessel for a longer period” and that “a possible deterioration in weather conditions has also been reported.”
“From a healthcare standpoint, the Spanish health authorities, in coordination with those of other countries, have organized a special healthcare operation for the controlled disembarkation off the port of Granadilla (Tenerife),” another section of the Resolution states. “Different agencies have coordinated in this operation, including the Maritime Captaincy of Tenerife, External Health Services, the Port Authority and Civil Protection.”
And it closes with a forceful statement: “In this regard, the competent authorities have determined that healthcare control is more effective in a prepared port than by indefinitely keeping the vessel on the high seas.” It was also considered that the port of Granadilla has the characteristics of a relatively isolated industrial port, with less interaction with the civilian population and broad operational zones for the actions required in this case.
Based on those criteria and the determination of the Spanish government, the hantavirus crisis now appears to be beginning to resolve itself.