One of the 14 Spanish citizens repatriated from the ship MV Hondius and who remain in quarantine at the Madrid-based Hospital Gómez Ulla has tested positive provisionally for hantavirus PCR upon arrival. As reported by La Moncloa, the patient currently shows no symptoms and is in good general condition, despite the preliminary result.
Health authorities expect to know the definitive results of the analyses in the coming hours, on which the protocol to be followed within the hospital will depend. If the positive case is confirmed, isolation will be reinforced. For the moment, the other 13 people evaluated have given provisionally negative results, although all continue under surveillance and preventive isolation in the hospital center.
Just like Spanish citizens, the rest of the passengers and crew disembarked since Sunday at the port of Granadilla de Abona in Tenerife have undergone tests by their respective countries. These checks have already confirmed one infection in a US citizen, who remains asymptomatic, and in a French woman admitted to intensive care.
In parallel, health authorities from several countries maintain surveillance over other possible contacts, even without having necessarily traveled aboard the MV Hondius. In Spain, two women admitted to Barcelona and Alicante after traveling on a flight with a deceased Dutch passenger due to hantavirus have tested negative in the PCR tests performed so far.
The MV Hondius sails to the Netherlands
After the disembarkation of the last passengers, the cruise ship set sail this Monday night from the port of Granadilla de Abona (Tenerife) bound for Rotterdam (Netherlands), where it expects to arrive in about five days. The ship, affected by a hantavirus outbreak, thus begins its final journey once the evacuation of all persons on board has been completed.
On the ship remains only a reduced team of 26 crew members, in charge of piloting the vessel to its destination.
The evacuation operation of the more than 140 passengers has concluded "successfully", as announced by the Minister of Health, Mónica García, in a press conference from the port itself. The ship had to remain docked for about an hour due to adverse weather conditions, which allowed the disembarkation to be completed "with complete safety", she indicated.
García has defended that the Government has fulfilled its objective "with efficacy, commitment, transparency and humanity", and has considered closed a device that he has defined as unprecedented due to its sanitary and logistical complexity.