The president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, opposed this Tuesday afternoon the disembarkation in the Canary Islands of the cruise ship where a hantavirus outbreak has been declared "if there is no danger to people and they are stabilized". The ship MV Hondius, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, has been waiting since Monday off the coast of Cape Verde, south of the Canary Islands, for the local government to authorize the disembarkation of two crew members with symptoms.
At the same time, the Government of Spain, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other countries involved have maintained contact throughout the day to try to coordinate an action plan.
An epidemiological study of the passage
For the moment, the passage is undergoing an epidemiological study on the coast of Santiago island, south of the Canary Islands, to be able to assess the situation. The Spanish Ministry of Health has reported that this analysis has been carried out by a team of epidemiologists who seek to know the condition of the people on the ship, to know if there are more people with symptoms and the risks of each contact. This follow-up will allow for the determination of repatriation processes or the ship's route.
According to the WHO, there are at least three passengers on the tourist cruise ship who could have hantavirus. In total, to date, the outbreak has affected at least seven people, three of them deceased, with two cases confirmed in the laboratory as hantavirus and the other five as suspected of having the disease.
Clavijo has defended that the cruise ship, which departed from Argentina on March 20 and was finally heading to the Canary Islands, "must be attended to where it is". Thus, the Canarian official has contradicted the stance of the WHO, which through the director of prevention and preparedness of epidemics and pandemics, Maria Van Kerkhove, assured on Tuesday morning that Spanish authorities would be in charge of receiving the ship in one of the two main ports of the capital islands.
Canarias proposes a route towards Países Bajos non-stop
For its part, the Ministry of Health has warned that it would not make any decision until knowing the epidemiological analyses that Cape Verde was carrying out on the passengers, contrary to the announcement by the World Health Organization. Along these lines, the Canarian president has indicated that the sick people should be treated in Cape Verde, before returning directly to the Netherlands, where the company operating the ship is from, and without stopping in the Canary archipelago.
"The reasonable thing to do is not to make the boat make another leg from Cape Verde to the Canary Islands, and from the Canary Islands to go to Holland, but rather that all the necessary support can be given to it from there," Clavijo stated in Brussels, where he met with the European Commissioner for Transport, Apostolos Tzitzikostas.
The Canarian president has indicated that he is in constant contact with the Minister of Health, Mónica García, and that the Spanish Executive has conveyed to him that this is also their position. "She conveyed to me that from the Ministry they understand that it is not reasonable to transfer it from Cape Verde to the Canary Islands and then leave, and that she was going to speak directly with the World Health Organization precisely so that, if evacuation was necessary or guarantees need to be given, they can be given where the ship already is," he explained.
Clavijo also added that from Cape Verde passengers could also be evacuated to the Netherlands by plane or on the tourist cruise ship itself. "From there, if the World Health Organization wants anything else, it will have to justify it because obviously this is a matter that concerns us greatly," he justified. "We have practically no information about the transmission vector. Something is known about hantavirus, but not much more is known," Clavijo highlighted.
The Canarian president has underlined that any intervention must be carried out "with all guarantees for the people on the boat, but of course for the Canarians too". For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) has highlighted that the risk to global health is "low".
