Authorities have issued contradictory statements on whether passengers will have to quarantine.
The Spanish government is facing criticism for sending mixed signals over how it plans to handle passengers of a virus-stricken cruise due to dock in the Canary Islands this weekend.
Over the past 24 hours, authorities in Madrid have issued mixed messages on how the country intends to process the 147 passengers travelling aboard the MV Hondius, the cruise ship on which a hantavirus outbreak has already resulted in the death of three travelers.
While there is consensus that all non-native asymptomatic passengers will be repatriated to their home countries, the future for the 14 Spaniards aboard the ship is uncertain.
Defense Minister Margarita Robles on Wednesday said Spanish passengers would be transferred by military plane to Madrid’s Gómez-Ulla Military Hospital — a specialized medical center with high-level isolation units — where they will undergo medical observation. But, she noted, further quarantine of the Spaniards would be “voluntary,” because people who don’t show symptoms cannot be forced into isolation.
During an interview on Spain’s Cadena Ser radio network Thursday morning, Health Minister Mónica García pushed back on this messaging, insisting the Spanish passengers would be expected to quarantine. The minister insisted that the government would appeal to the Spaniards’ “common sense and responsibility.” If that fails, however, she said authorities had “sufficient legal instruments to adopt the necessary measures to protect public health.”
Spain’s center-right opposition People’s Party seized on the lack of clarity on the quarantines to accuse the government of operational incompetence. “Are they going to leave public safety and health in the hands of each individual’s goodwill?” Carmen Fúnez, the party’s deputy secretary for health, wrote on X. “There is no one at the wheel.”
The far-right Vox party, meanwhile, accused the government of only admitting the ship to a Spanish port to distract the public from an ongoing corruption case involving a former minister.
“[Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez] is always looking for something to distract us from his corruption, and so he saw that there was a ship out there with a deadly virus and here it is now, heading to Spain, to the Canary Islands,” said Vox leader Santiago Abascal during a campaign event in Andalusia on Wednesday. “We still remember the coronavirus epidemic.”
The government’s decision to accept the World Health Organization’s request to allow the MV Hondius to dock in the Canary Islands remains a source of tension with Regional President Fernando Clavijo, who on Wednesday complained Madrid had not duly informed him of the operation.
As of Thursday morning, the Dutch-flagged vessel was sailing east of the Cape Verde island of Sal and is expected to dock in Tenerife on Sunday, according to vessel tracking data. The World Health Organization confirmed there are eight travelers with hantavirus symptoms still aboard the MV Hondius. Authorities worldwide are currently trying to track down the 30 passengers who departed the ship in Santa Helena, before the outbreak was reported.
Dutch media reported that a flight attendant who served one of the later deceased passengers on a flight from Johannesburg has been hospitalized with mild symptoms. Another passenger, a German woman suspected of infection, was flown to Amsterdam and transferred to a hospital in Düsseldorf late Wednesday. A further infected passenger is being treated in Zurich.
Hantaviruses are typically transmitted from rodents to humans, but experts believe the strain involved in this outbreak may be the Andes virus, which can spread between people. Incubation time ranges from one to eight weeks.