The organization of the device before the arrival in Tenerife of the cruise ship MV Hondius, on which a hantavirus outbreak has been declared, advances this Friday with another frenetic day of meetings, when about 48 hours remain for the Spanish health and organizational system to face a new challenge.
These are the keys to the protocol that are known so far, with messages of reassurance from the Government and the World Health Organization (WHO), which insists that we are not facing another pandemic like with covid.
Calendar and evacuation
The ship will be anchored off the port of Granadilla de Abona (Tenerife) on Sunday at noon. Passengers will be transferred by boats in groups of five to the port - which has no infrastructure to receive passengers - and from there to the planes. The operation will be completely isolated from the population and cordoned off, as will the vehicles and the airport area, although the final details are yet to be determined.
No one will abandon the ship until their transport has arrived at the nearby Tenerife Sur airport (located ten minutes by car from the port). The body of the deceased person on the ship will also be evacuated, but with a different protocol, the usual one for these cases.
A United States plane, another from the United Kingdom, and the Spanish military
Spain is coordinating the arrival of planes from countries that wish to pick up their compatriots, or those who wish to do so jointly.
To date, the arrival of a Boeing 747 from the United States and another aircraft from the United Kingdom is planned, in addition to the one already announced by the Government of Spain to transfer those affected to Madrid.
It is foreseeable that this Friday the rest of the involved states - there are 23 nationalities - will confirm if they deploy aircraft to evacuate their compatriots, which would be done by medicalized plane in the event that the passenger presented symptoms.
Next phase: quarantines and ship disinfection
After the discrepancies over the mandatory nature of quarantines for Spaniards that the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Health showed on Wednesday, the head of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, has explained that it will be mandatory "in the cases determined" by the scientific authorities.
The incubation period of hantavirus can range -according to the WHO- between one and six weeks, but now day zero must be established when they stopped having contact with infected people to calculate quarantines without prolonging the process. None of the ship's occupants have shown symptoms since April 28.
The fourteen Spaniards are well and when they arrive in Madrid they will be evaluated at the Central Defense Hospital Gómez Ulla of Madrid -which has high-level isolation units-, after signing the consent for it, and subsequently their evolution will be analyzed day by day with all the necessary tests.
In addition, the high-level isolation and treatment unit (UATAN) of the University Hospital of Our Lady of La Candelaria, in Tenerife, is already ready in case it is necessary to use it with any of the passengers.
This unit in Tenerife is the only one in the Canary Islands and one of the 17 that exist in Spain, which is why the island was the most appropriate place for the operation.
Regarding the crew, in principle it is considered that the Netherlands, as the flag country and the shipowner, will assume their needs, as well as the disinfection of the vessel, which is not a complex task and it is unknown whether it will be done at sea or once it returns to its country of origin.
WHO updates data: ten cases
The WHO has determined that for now there are five confirmed infections and another four suspected, to which are added two people who were traveling on the ship, isolated in Singapore with no or very mild symptoms.
The agency is also investigating the possible origin of the outbreak, which could be in an ornithological trip through Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay made by the Dutch couple who died. In addition, another woman died on the boat after presenting symptoms of pneumonia.