Waves of passengers evacuated from cruise ship hit by deadly hantavirus

By Laura Sharman, Caitlin Danaher, Lex Harvey, CNN

(CNN) — As dozens of passengers were evacuated from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship on Sunday, at least two more people have tested positive for the virus while several others are reporting symptoms, according to authorities.

Passengers were seen being ferried from the MV Hondius, anchored at the Port of Granadilla near the Spanish island of Tenerife, to the island after the ship arrived earlier Sunday carrying 147 people. Evacuations involved 94 passengers of 19 nationalities, according to Spanish health authorities. More passengers are expected to depart Monday.

One of the 17 American passengers who was evacuated from the ship Sunday tested “mildly” positive for the Andes strain of the virus on a PCR test, while a second is showing mild symptoms, the US Department of Health and Human Services said.

A French woman who was on board the MV Hondius has also tested positive for hantavirus and is being treated in a specialist hospital, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist told French radio station France Inter Monday.

The passenger began exhibiting symptoms during her return to France and tested positive upon arrival. Her health deteriorated overnight, Rist said.

The US passengers landed early Monday in Nebraska, home to the National Quarantine Unit. The passenger who tested positive and the symptomatic passenger traveled in the plane’s biocontainment units “out of an abundance of caution,” HHS said.

In a Monday statement, the Spanish Ministry of Health said that while US authorities had classified one of the passengers as a “weak” positive, European health officials said the test was inconclusive. It said the symptomatic American passenger “developed a mild cough on May 6” that resolved a day later. “The doctors did not consider classifying the individual as a probable case,” it said.

CNN has reached out to HHS for more information.

Prior to disembarking, medical teams boarded the ship to run tests on passengers and crew, Spain’s health minister Mónica García said shortly before 8 a.m. local time.

After coming ashore, passengers filed onto waiting buses to be taken to the airport. From there, they were evacuated to their home countries.

The carefully managed repatriation operation involving multiple nations went “according to plan,” García told a news conference at the port on Sunday.

Since the vessel departed Argentina last month, the deaths of three people have been linked to hantavirus -–– a rare disease typically caused by exposure to infected rodents’ urine or feces –– while others have been evacuated from the ship for medical treatment.

Experts have sought to assuage fears of a new pandemic, with World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressing the virus is “not another Covid-19” and the risk to the public remains low.

An official at the US Department of Health and Human Services said Saturday that the current assessment is that the risk to the broader American public remains “extremely low.”

Local officials earlier said the ship would anchor at “the safest” distance from the dock, and passengers would be brought ashore by nationality in small boats with a maximum capacity of 10 people, according to the tour operator Oceanwide Expeditions.

Several nations, including the US, Spain, France, Canada, Ireland and the Netherlands, used aircraft to evacuate their nationals who were on the ship.

Flights evacuating the remaining passengers will depart for Australia and the Netherlands on Monday, Spain’s health ministry said.

The vessel will then sail to Rotterdam in the Netherlands with the remaining crew members aboard, the tour operator said, a voyage of about five days. After the crew have disembarked the ship will be disinfected.

“The sequence of disembarkation will be coordinated with arriving repatriation flights,” Oceanwide said, adding that passengers’ luggage would remain on the ship and be returned to them later.

The US passenger who tested positive for hantavirus will be transferred to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, while the remaining passengers will go to the National Quarantine Unit for assessment and monitoring, Nebraska Medicine said in a statement. The passenger with mild symptoms will also be taken to a separate location, the HHS said.

After the other passengers are assessed, they will then be able to undergo home-based monitoring over the next 42 days, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official.

On Sunday, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said one of the five French nationals repatriated from Tenerife that day showed symptoms of hantavirus while aboard the flight returning them to France.

“As a result, these five passengers were immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice,” Lecornu said on X.

They are receiving medical care and will undergo testing and a full health assessment, he said.

A plane carrying 14 Spanish passengers who had been aboard the hantavirus-hit liner landed at Torrejon de Ardoz military airport, east of the capital Madrid, on Sunday afternoon.

They were then taken to a military hospital, where they will stay in individual rooms with no visitors allowed, and will receive a PCR test upon arrival and another seven days later, Spain’s health ministry said.

The UK government said 20 British nationals, one German national and one Japanese national who were aboard the ship are now being monitored at Arrowe Park Hospital in northwest England. The German national resides in the UK while the Japanese national was brought to the UK at the request of the Japanese government, according to a Monday statement from the UK Health Security Agency.

After the passengers are assessed by public health specialists, the passengers will be asked to isolate for up to 45 days, the UK Health Security Agency said.

The arrival of the cruise ship has caused tensions in the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain, with the territory’s leader Fernando Clavijo, saying earlier in the week that he was opposed to the ship docking there.

Port workers in Tenerife have also held protests, voicing their concerns about a lack of communication about the potential risks.

The hantavirus outbreak was first reported to the World Health Organization on May 2 and remains a low risk to the general public, the WHO said.

CNN has contacted Ports of Tenerife and Clavijo’s office for comment.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Joseph Ataman, Adam Cancryn, Brenda Goodman, Jennifer Hansler, Deidre McPhillips, Christian Edwards and Jonny Hallam contributed to this report.