Information was given by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, while Spanish authorities coordinate the disembarkation of around 150 occupants of the ship in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands
A Frenchman repatriated this Sunday (10) after being evacuated from the cruise affected by a hantavirus outbreak presents “symptoms”informed Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, while Spanish authorities coordinate the disembarkation of the ship’s approximately 150 occupants in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands.
Passengers, dressed in blue protective suits, were getting off the Hondius cruise ship in small groups at the port of Granadilla. THE vessel left on April 1st from Argentina before suffering the outbreak that killed three of its passengers.
From the ship, they were taken to the small port in speedboats, according to an AFP journalist. By 3:30 pm GMT (12:30 pm in Brasília), the planes with the Spanish, French and Canadians had already left, as well as a Dutch aircraft carrying people of different nationalities, including an Argentinean and a Guatemalan.
After the arrival in France of five repatriated citizens, Lecornu announced that one of them presented “symptoms on the plane”.
“These five passengers were immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice,” said Lecornu, who also announced that the government will issue a decree to implement these measures.
Despite the worldwide alarm caused by the outbreak, Carlo Ferello, a retired Argentine engineer, reported to local channel TN that the environment on the cruise was not “worrying” because, after the initial cases, “they didn’t appear anymore”.
“I was alone, so I always ate, had breakfast, lunch, dinner alone, I didn’t have much contact (…) Life continued, let’s say, normal,” added Ferello, who will be quarantined in the Netherlands.
Extreme protective measures
The director of Spanish Civil Protection, Virginia Barcones, told RTVE that, if everything goes “as planned, the ship will set sail for the Netherlands at 7 pm” (3 pm in Brasília) on Monday.
The first to leave were the fourteen Spanishat around 08:30 GMT, who were taken to Tenerife South airport, 10 minutes away, where an AFP journalist saw their arrival in red buses from the Military Emergency Unit (UME), with the driver’s side separated from the passengers by a kind of prophylactic barrier.
Upon arriving at the airport, the Spanish changed their protective suits and have been disinfected before taking off at 10:55 GMT towards Madrid, where they will be sent to a military hospital to undergo quarantine.
The same operation will occur with other passengers and crew members of other nationalities. The last flight, bound for Australia, will depart on Monday, added the minister, who is alongside other ministers and the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, coordinating and supervising the operation.
“This is not another covid”
“The operation has started and is going very well. We also appreciate the coordination on the part of Spain, and the EU is also here,” said Ghebreyesus.
In the port of the island in the Atlantic archipelago of the Canaries it was possible to see the scheme assembled, with tends of the Civil Guard and the red buses of the UME for the transfer of Hondius passengers to the airport. The ship departed on April 1 from Ushuaia, in the extreme south of Argentina.
The Spanish government insisted that the operation has “all public health guarantees”.
The head of the WHO had been emphatic the day before: “I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another covid. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low.”
The latest WHO report, before the report of the suspected case in France, recorded a total of six confirmed cases among eight suspects, including a couple of Dutch passengers and a German woman who died from this known but uncommon virus, for which there is no vaccine or treatment.
“The world watches us”
O ship remains at anchorwithout docking, in the port of Granadilla so as not to touch land, at the express request of the regional authorities of the Canaries, who made their opposition clear.
“They will not endanger the population with my authorization and connivance”, declared the regional president, Fernando Cavijo.
“The world is watching us again. And again Spain, as in many other crises, will respond to the heights of what this great country is, with exemplary and effectiveness”, said this Sunday the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, at an event for his Socialist Party in Andalusia.
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