Tedros Reassures Tenerife Ahead of MV Hondius Arrival
Tedros Ghebreyesus traveled to tenerife on Sunday and told residents the current public health risk from hantavirus remains low as the MV Hondius neared the port of Granadilla. The World Health Organization director general said the ship was due in the early hours of Sunday morning, after six cases and three deaths aboard the Dutch vessel.
Tedros in Tenerife
“I know you are worried,” Tedros said in a personal message to Tenerife residents. “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.”
He added: “But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another Covid. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low.”
Tedros said he traveled to Tenerife to observe the operation first-hand. The WHO chief’s message came as Spanish officials prepared for the ship’s arrival and local concern grew around the planned docking.
MV Hondius in Granadilla
The MV Hondius was expected to drop anchor in the Canary Islands between 04:00 and 06:00 GMT on Sunday. Spanish officials laid out containment precautions for the ship, which include holding passengers on board until they can leave only on smaller boats when a repatriation flight is waiting for them on the tarmac.
Flights were planned to return passengers to the UK, the US, France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland. The EU was sending two planes for the remaining European citizens. The WHO said Dr Freddy Banza-Mutoka was aboard with two Dutch physicians, and they were carrying out medical and exposure assessments of everyone on the vessel.
Containment steps
The WHO believed some passengers contracted the Andes strain while in South America. That detail shaped the response on board and at the airport, where passengers were to be transferred only when a flight was ready. The WHO said no more passengers were showing symptoms at the time of the report.
Fernando Clavijo, the region’s president, opposed the ship’s arrival. Even so, the vessel was set to come into Granadilla under precautions already laid out by Spanish authorities, with passengers moving under a controlled handoff rather than disembarking freely.
