UK passengers on hantavirus-hit ship will fly home after Tenerife screening

"Passengers from the UK who are on board the hantavirus-afflicted cruise ship heading for Tenerife will be flown to Merseyside on Sunday for hospital quarantine. The 19 British passengers and three crew will be transferred to Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral, which hosted British people returning from China at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. All 146 passengers of the MV Hondius, where an outbreak has killed three people and caused an international health scare, will be screened for the infection in Tenerife on Sunday morning before being transferred to their home countries."

"The polar cruise ship is heading to the Canary Islands after spending days stranded off the coast of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde. Local authorities would not allow the ship to dock amid fears of a wider outbreak overwhelming the healthcare system of the small island nation. Similar concerns have been expressed in Tenerife, which received reassurance on Saturday in the form of a personal statement from the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, which described hantavirus as serious but said the risk is low."

"I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word outbreak' and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment. But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another Covid. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now."

Nineteen British passengers and three crew on a cruise ship affected by hantavirus will be flown from Tenerife to Merseyside on Sunday for hospital quarantine at Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral. All 146 passengers on the MV Hondius will be screened for hantavirus in Tenerife before being transferred to their home countries. The ship had been stranded off Praia, Cape Verde, where local authorities refused to allow docking due to fears of a wider outbreak overwhelming the island’s healthcare system. Similar concerns were raised in Tenerife, but reassurance was provided by the World Health Organization director general, who said the risk from hantavirus remains low and it is not another Covid.

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