More than 140 passengers and crew members have been evacuated from a Dutch-flagged cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak in Granadilla de Abona, Spain. In all, three passengers have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease.
The final flight to evacuate most of the ship's nearly 150 passengers and crew will leave for Australia on Monday , before the ship continues to the Netherlands, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said.
A police boat operates next to the cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla de Abona after being affected by a hantavirus outbreak, in Tenerife, Spain, May 10, 2026. REUTERS/Hannah McKay Add CNA as a trusted source to help Google better understand and surface our content in search results.
GRANADILLA DE ABONA, Spain: Occupants of a cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has sparked international alarm began leaving the vessel in Spain's Canary Islands on Sunday for their Three passengers from the MV Hondius - a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman - have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents. No vaccines or specific treatments exist for hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, where the ship departed in April.
But health officials have stressed that the risk for global public health is low and played down comparisons to a repeat of the COVID-19 pandemic. The final flight to evacuate most of the ship's nearly 150 passengers and crew will leave for Australia on Monday, before the ship continues to the Netherlands, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said.
Passengers wearing blue medical suits began disembarking the Dutch-flagged vessel onto smaller boats to reach the port of Granadilla on Tenerife, AFP journalists saw. People from the cruise ship MV Hondius, affected by a hantavirus outbreak, are transferred by boat to the port after disembarking, at the port of Granadilla de Abona, in Tenerife, Spain, on May 10, 2026.
The evacuees then boarded a bus for their transfer to Tenerife South airport, where their repatriation flights were due to take off.
"The disembarkation of the passengers and the Spanish crew member has started," the health ministry confirmed on Telegram. The 14 Spaniards on board would leave first, followed by a Dutch flight that would also take citizens from Germany, Belgium, Greece and part of the crew, Garcia said. Separate flights for Canadian, Turkish, French, British, Irish and US citizens were also planned for Sunday, added Garcia.
A passenger from the cruise ship MV Hondius affected by a hantavirus outbreak, walks to board a bus at the port of Granadilla de Abona, in Tenerife, Spain, on May 10, 2026. The Atlantic archipelago's regional authorities have consistently resisted taking in the ship, which was only authorised to anchor offshore instead of docking in the port.
But all passengers are asymptomatic and underwent a final medical assessment before their disembarkation, Garcia told reporters on Tenerife shortly before the operation began. AFP journalists at Granadilla saw white tents erected along the quay and that the police, some in protective medical suits, had sealed off part of the small industrial port.
A Spanish civil guard wears a protective suit as the Dutch flagged hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius arrived at the industrial port of Granadilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands on May 10, 2026. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is accompanying Spanish officials to oversee the delicate operation. Regional authorities have warned that it must be completed by Monday, when adverse weather conditions will force the ship to leave.
The only hantavirus type that can transmit from person to person - the Andes virus - has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, fuelling international concern. The WHO said on Friday it had confirmed six cases out of eight suspected ones. There are no suspected cases remaining on the ship. The MV Hondius had arrived at Tenerife early on Sunday morning from Cape Verde, where three infected people had already been evacuated to Europe earlier in the week.
The WHO believes the first infection occurred before the start of the expedition, followed by transmission between humans onboard the vessel. But Argentine provincial health official Juan Petrina has said there was an"almost zero chance" the Dutch man linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia based on the virus's weeks-long incubation period, among other factors. Health authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already disembarked and anyone who may have come into contact with them.
'Very negligible' risk of hantavirus in Singapore, healthcare system well-prepared: Experts A flight attendant on the Dutch airline KLM, who came into contact with an infected passenger from the cruise ship and later showed mild symptoms, tested negative for hantavirus, the WHO said Friday. The passenger - the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak - had briefly been on a plane bound from Johannesburg to the Netherlands on Apr 25, but was removed before take-off.
Spanish authorities said a woman on that flight was being tested for hantavirus, having developed symptoms at home in eastern Spain. She is in isolation in hospital, said health secretary Javier Padilla. British health authorities also said Friday there was a suspected case on Tristan da Cunha, one of the world's most isolated settlements with around 220 people.
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