Published on •Updated
Here is the live monitoring of the ship MV Hondius, where there is an outbreak of hantavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed five infections and three deaths, warning that more cases could still emerge because the virus can have an incubation period of up to six weeks, but it categorically rules out any kind of pandemic: “it is not the next COVID”.
The Dutch cruise ship is now on its way to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, where it is expected to arrive on Sunday, 10 May.
The ship is set to anchor off the coast, and its 144 passengers will be transferred to the airport in boats.
The 14 Spanish passengers on board will be transferred to the Gómez Ulla Hospital in Madrid, where they will be quarantined for 45 days. The rest of the crew will be transferred to their respective countries.
The cruise ship MV Hondius set sail on 1 April from Ushuaia, Argentina, to cross the South Atlantic. The first victim died on the boat on 11 April; his wife later disembarked on the island of St Helena and died on 26 April in Johannesburg.
More than 30 other people left the ship in the same port.
The third victim was a German woman who died on 2 May, after she developed symptoms of pneumonia.
Some 90 people of 23 nationalities are currently on board the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius, including 38 Filipinos, 23 Britons, 17 Americans, and 14 Spaniards.