Canberra reveals plan to rescue Australians on virus ship

London/Tenerife: An Australian flight will arrive in the Canary Islands on Monday to rescue passengers from the cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak after furious complaints that nations were not sending aircraft quickly enough to collect those on board.

The MV Hondius arrived at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife early on Sunday morning (about 4pm on Sunday, AEST) amid huge concern on the islands about the spread of the disease that killed three people who had been on board.

In an urgent move on Saturday night, the Spanish government overturned a decision by the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, to halt the arrival because he had feared those who disembarked would stay on the islands.

Clavijo told reporters at the port on Saturday night that he had cancelled the authority for the arrival because aircraft were arriving too slowly, and he named Australia and the Netherlands as two nations that were not moving fast enough.

There are four Australians and one permanent resident on board the MV Hondius. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said officials were travelling to the Canary Islands to provide consular assistance and to co-ordinate with partner countries.

Clavijo said some countries, including Australia, were saying that aircraft could arrive on Monday to collect passengers, but he was concerned they would remain at the port for too long, either on the ship or on land.

“We are not going to be accomplices to something that endangers the health and security of our land,” he said, in a translation of his remarks in Spanish.

DFAT confirmed on Sunday night in Australia that it expected its flight to land in the Canary Islands on Monday.

“In order to protect Australians and support the safe return of those onboard MV Hondius, the Australian government is repatriating four Australian citizens and one permanent resident from Tenerife,” it said.

“One New Zealand citizen will also travel on the Australian government-supported flight.”

The charter flight is expected to leave Tenerife at around 5pm on Monday (Tuesday AEST) and will therefore meet the requirements set out by the Spanish government, despite the concerns of the Canary Islands president.

Medical personnel will be onboard the flight, which will head to Perth and is expected to arrive on Tuesday.

The Australian citizens and the permanent resident on board the Hondius are expected to return to their home states of NSW and Queensland, where quarantine arrangements are the responsibility of the state governments.

The government said none of the passengers being repatriated to Australia were displaying symptoms of the virus.

With the arrival of the ship in doubt, the Spanish government issued an official order late on Saturday to ensure the 147 passengers and crew could be removed and treated.

Spanish Merchant Navy director-general Ana Núñez Velasco signed the order to nullify the ban that Clavijo had announced only hours earlier.

The passengers, none of whom have shown signs of infection, will be tested by Spanish health authorities to ensure they remain asymptomatic, then transported to land in small boats, according to Spanish officials.

Sealed-off buses will then take the passengers to the Spanish island’s main airport about 10 minutes away, where they will board planes heading to their respective countries. There are more than 20 different nationalities on board.

All passengers and crew are considered high-risk contacts as a precautionary measure, Europe’s public health agency said late on Saturday as part of its rapid scientific advice.

Earlier, the head of the World Health Organisation sought to reassure anxious Tenerife residents by issuing a direct message that the virus was “not another COVID”.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spain’s Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, arrived on the island on Saturday to co-ordinate the operation.

“I know you are worried. 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,” Tedros said in a statement to the people of Tenerife.

“But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now.”

Intensive preparations have been made to receive the Hondius at Granadilla, where the ship itself will not be allowed to enter the harbour. A 1.6-kilometre security zone will be enforced around the vessel.

Meanwhile, British Army medics parachuted onto Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic this weekend to treat a British person with hantavirus, the London Telegraph reported.

A team of six paratroopers and two military doctors jumped from an RAF A400 Atlas aircraft and landed on the remote island, which has no airstrip, early on Saturday.

The British national with confirmed hantavirus disembarked from the Hondius on Tristan da Cunha, where they live, the paper said. It said it understood a second contact had also been placed in isolation on the island, which is a British Overseas Territory.

Hantavirus can cause life-threatening illness. It usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the MV Hondius outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Three people have died in the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus.

Residents’ fears

Ahead of the ship’s arrival, some Tenerife residents said they were worried, while some Spanish passengers on board the cruise ship voiced concern about being stigmatised.

“I tell you, I don’t like this very much,” said 69-year-old resident Simon Vidal. “Anyone can say what they want. Why did they have to bring a boat from another country here? Why not anywhere else? Why bring it to the Canary Islands?”

Others said they empathised with the vessel’s passengers, but that they were still concerned.

“The truth is that it is very worrying,” said 27-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Samantha Aguero.

“We feel a bit unsafe. We don’t feel as there are 100 per cent security measures in place to welcome it. This is a virus after all and we have lived this during the pandemic. But we also need to have empathy.”

Garcia said the disembarkation in Tenerife would take place “under maximum safety conditions”.

Authorities aim to complete the evacuation flights on Sunday and Monday, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic management, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a briefing on Saturday.

Britain and the US have agreed to send aircraft to evacuate their citizens. Americans are to be quarantined at a medical centre in Nebraska.

All Spanish passengers will be transferred to a medical facility where they will be quarantined, Garcia said. Cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions has listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.

One small bag only

Those disembarking will leave their luggage behind, Garcia said, and will be allowed to take only one small bag containing essential items, a mobile phone, a charger, and documentation.

Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to the Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, the minister said.

Health authorities on four continents have been tracing and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who had disembarked before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator have said.