The first evacuations of nearly 150 passengers and crew members of the cruise ship MV Hondius, where an outbreak of hantavirus was detected, began this Sunday, May 10 morning in a port on the island of Tenerife, in the Canaries. The day before, the British army brought medical equipment to a national living on an isolated island.
This was the only way to help a British person showing symptoms of hantavirus. Several soldiers from the British army parachuted on Saturday May 9 and landed on Tristan da Cunha Island to help one of their nationals.
The island is considered one of the most isolated inhabited territories in the world, announced the British Ministry of Defense.
Oxygen cylinders and other medical supplies were also parachuted onto the island, which does not have a landing strip and is located in the southern Atlantic Ocean.
“This operation marks a first for the British army,” said the Ministry of Defense in a press release, adding that this demonstrates “its ability to intervene very quickly throughout the world for various missions”.
The Briton who lives there was on board the MV Hondius and disembarked in mid-April. It was only two weeks later that he showed the first symptoms of hantavirus. Currently in solitary confinement, he is in stable condition.
Passengers evacuated
On the MV Hondius, the first evacuations of nearly 150 passengers and crew members of the cruise ship began this Sunday, May 10 in the morning in a port on the island of Tenerife, in the Canaries, an operation which will not end until Monday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) lists six confirmed cases of hantavirus among eight suspected cases, including three people who died from this known but rare virus, for which there is no vaccine or treatment.
In total, more than a hundred people must be evacuated in the coming hours from the MV Hondius. From the ship, the passengers are being transferred to the mainland, in groups of five, from where they will be immediately taken to Tenerife South airport, located about ten minutes away, to be immediately repatriated by plane to their country of origin.
As it stands, all passengers of the MV Hondius, which left on April 1 from Ushuaia in Argentina, are considered “high-risk contacts” and will have to be monitored for 42 days, according to the WHO.
