US Sends Repatriation Plane for 17 Americans on Hantavirus-Affected Cruise Ship

The United States government is sending a repatriation plane to evacuate 17 Americans from the cruise ship MV Hondius amid a deadly hantavirus outbreak.

The plane comes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Health and Human Services. It will transport the Americans home in coordination with Spanish officials, the U.S. State Department said.

The MV Hondius, now the focus of global concern over the rare virus, sails from Cape Verde toward the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off Africa's west coast. The ship should reach Tenerife, the largest of the seven islands, early Sunday local time.

Between Sunday and Monday, the Hondius will offload passengers slowly to curb virus spread. After Canary Islands officials barred it from docking in Tenerife, the ship will anchor offshore.

Disembarkation will proceed country by country, Spanish officials said at a Friday press conference. Asymptomatic passengers will leave in groups of five via small boats to shore, board buses and head directly to the airport runway, where their country's plane awaits takeoff.

"I repeat one more day: All the areas they are going to travel through are going to be isolated," said Virginia Balcones, secretary general of civil protection. "There will be no contact with civilian personnel."

The World Health Organization is conducting health checks for all 147 people aboard and assessing exposure levels to confirmed hantavirus cases, said Anais Legand, a WHO technical officer, on Friday. This will guide next steps for passengers.

No one on board showed symptoms Friday, according to the WHO and Spanish officials.

Medicalized planes stand ready if symptoms appear, but officials expect standard aircraft to suffice, Balcones said.

The Dutch-flagged Hondius will then leave the Canary Islands for the Netherlands with a skeleton crew, Spanish health officials said.

The cruise has produced nine confirmed or suspected hantavirus cases, including three deaths: a Dutch couple and another woman aboard. The couple had traveled months in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, bird-watching in spots known for the Andes strain, the only human-transmissible variant.

More than a dozen countries, including the U.S., are tracking earlier disembarkees from before hantavirus confirmation.

Spain's Secretary of State for Health Javier Padilla said the risk of hantavirus, even the Andes strain, spreading globally like COVID-19 remains low. "We have already been saying this, the existing situation is of very low risk for the general population," he said.