Spanish officials have clashed with their own regional authorities over a plan to receive the virus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius.
Meanwhile, a man who traveled on the Hondius has received treatment for the deadly hantavirus in Zurich, Switzerland.
According to The New York Times, Mónica García, the Spanish health minister, said during a Wednesday news conference that in the coming days the Hondius would dock at a port in Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands.
However, Fernando Clavijo, president of the Canary Islands, objected to the plan.
“There is no information that justifies why the vessel must sail for three days to the Canary Islands,” Clavijo said in a radio interview.
The Hondius departed Wednesday from its anchorage off the West African nation of Cape Verde.
For her part, García did not wish to engage in a public debate with the Canary Islands president.
“We are not going to get into the political controversy, I believe it’s not the time,” she said in response to Clavijo’s objection.
On April 11, a 70-year-old man from the Netherlands died aboard the Hondius. Fifteen days later, on April 26, the man’s 69-year-old wife also died while trying to fly home to the Netherlands from Johannesburg, South Africa. On May 2, a German passenger died, bringing the total number of fatalities to three.
Authorities confirmed hantavirus in the case of the 69-year-old woman. The government of Argentina has also begun to investigate the theory that the outbreak began with the now-deceased Dutch couple, who traveled through southern Argentina and Chile.
The Hondius departed Argentina in early April.
In addition to the confirmed cases, three people, including two with “acute” hantavirus symptoms, were evacuated from the ship Wednesday and flown to the Netherlands on medical flights. The ship’s 56-year-old British doctor was among the evacuees.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Swiss government said in a statement Wednesday that a man who had sailed on the Hondius had received treatment for hantavirus in Zurich, according to NBC News.
The World Health Organization has described hantavirus as “a group of viruses carried by rodents that can cause severe disease in humans.”
For the South American variant, the fatality rate can reach 50 percent.
Human-to-human transmission, however, “remains uncommon.”
“When it occurs, transmission between people has been associated with close and prolonged contact, particularly among household members or intimate partners, and appears most likely during the early phase of illness, when the virus is more transmissible,” the WHO reported.
Of course “close and prolonged contact” can occur with more regularity aboard a cruise ship than in the general population.
Nonetheless, Clavijo does not want the Hondius in the Canary Islands.
“This decision is not based on any technical criteria, nor is there sufficient information to reassure the public or guarantee their safety,” the archipelago’s president said, according to NBC.
Clavijo also said that he had requested an urgent meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
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