Spain began evacuating passengers from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship anchored near Tenerife on Sunday, with health officials boarding the boat to conduct a final check and begin disembarking passengers, Spain's health ministry said.
The first group of passengers, who are Spanish nationals, has begun to disembark from the cruise ship into a small boat, which was hit by a hantavirus outbreak, and is headed to Tenerife's Port of Granadilla, Spain's health ministry said.
The passengers will be transported directly from the port in military buses to the airport and evacuated by a Spanish government plane to Madrid, where they will be taken to the hospital and quarantined, officials have said.
Spanish Health Minister Mónica García noted that the passenger evacuation process will last until Monday afternoon local time, adding that following the Spaniards, the Netherlands, whose plane will also transport passengers from Germany, Belgium, and Greece, will disembark.
After that, passengers from Turkey, France, Great Britain, and the United States will be evacuated, the minister added, speaking to reporters at the port of Tenerife.
Thirty crew members will remain on board and sail to the Netherlands, where the ship will be disinfected.
All passengers on the luxury cruise ship MV Hondius 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.
The agency urged symptomatic passengers to be prioritized for medical assessment and testing on arrival, adding that they may be isolated in Tenerife or medically evacuated to their home country, depending on their condition.
The ship left for Spain on Wednesday from the coast of Cape Verde, after the World Health Organization and the European Union asked the country to manage the evacuation of passengers following the detection of a hantavirus outbreak.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived on Saturday evening in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, alongside Spain's interior and health ministers and its minister for territorial policy, to coordinate the ship's arrival.
The WHO said on Friday that eight people had fallen ill, including three who died - a Dutch couple and a German national. Six of these people are confirmed to have contracted the virus, with another two suspected cases, the WHO has said.
Hantavirus is usually spread by rodents, but can, in rare cases, be transmitted person-to-person. The WHO has said the risk to the wider global population is low, but the risk to passengers and crew on the ship is moderate.
