A virus-hit cruise ship with 149 people aboard faces fresh crisis after the Canary Islands refused to let the doomed vessel dock in Tenerife.
The Dutch-flagged Hondius, run by Oceanwide Expeditions, has been stranded off Cape Verde since Sunday following a hantavirus outbreak that has killed three passengers and left a 69-year-old British citizen in critical condition at a Johannesburg hospital.
Canary Islands president Fernando Clavijo has now slammed the door shut on the stricken ship, saying in quotes reported by The Telegraph: “I cannot allow it to enter.”
Clavijo added: “This decision is not based on any technical criteria, nor is there sufficient information to reassure the public or guarantee their safety.” He has demanded an urgent meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to thrash out the impasse.
The block is a major blow to those aboard, who had been pinning their hopes on reaching the Spanish archipelago after Cape Verdean officials previously rejected pleas for two stricken crew members to disembark, citing a lack of capacity to treat them.
The Spanish government had pushed to admit the vessel, citing a “moral and legal obligation” and a request from the World Health Organization (WHO) to act “in accordance with international law and humanitarian principles,” according to the Telegraph.
Oceanwide Expeditions had been planning a three-day sail to Gran Canaria or Tenerife so passengers could undergo medical screening, the company confirmed in a statement issued to the media on Tuesday.
The operator said two crew members still require urgent medical care, with two medically equipped aircraft now en route to Cape Verde to airlift them—along with a guest associated with a passenger who died on May 2—back to the Netherlands.
Two cases of hantavirus have been confirmed on the Hondius, and five more are suspected. The virus is generally transmitted through rodent waste and saliva, killing around 40 percent of those it infects, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
WHO epidemic and pandemic preparedness director, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, has confirmed the body is investigating possible human-to-human transmission on board, although she believes the first infected person likely caught the virus before embarking.
The Dutch couple at the center of the outbreak, both 69, lived in the village of Haulerwijk in Friesland and are believed to have picked up the virus before boarding the ship in Argentina on April 1.
Speaking at a Geneva press briefing on Tuesday, Van Kerkhove said any suspected human-to-human spread would have occurred only “among the really close contacts” such as couples, and that the wider risk to the public remained low.
Oceanwide Expeditions told the Daily Beast in a statement that the “planned destination” was still the Canary Islands, and that the company was “in close and continual discussion with relevant authorities regarding our exact point of arrival, quarantine and screening procedures for all guests, and a precise timeline.”
