The cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak has arrived at the Spanish island of Tenerife.
According to CNN, the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius arrived at the Spanish port in the Canary Islands, early on Sunday, May 10.
Its 147 passengers are expected to disembark in a carefully managed repatriation operation involving multiple nations.
Small boats with flashing sirens approached the MV Hondius at sunrise, after it anchored at the Port of Granadilla in the Canary Islands.
Silhouettes appeared at the vessel’s curtained windows as a tugboat approached below, while a masked individual stood at the open door.
Medical teams boarded the ship to run tests on passengers and crew, Spain’s health minister Mónica García said shortly before 8 am.
The passengers will then be evacuated to their home countries.
As per the local officials, ship will anchor at “the safest” distance from the dock and passengers will be brought ashore by nationality in small boats with a maximum capacity of 10 people.
Several nations, including the US, Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands, are sending aircraft to evacuate their nationals who were on the ship.
The tour operator Oceanwide Expeditions said, “The sequence of disembarkation will be coordinated with arriving repatriation flights,” adding that passengers’ luggage would remain on the ship and be returned to them later.
Since the vessel departed Argentina last month, the deaths of three people have been linked to hantavirus, a rare disease typically caused by exposure to infected rodents’ urine or feces, while others have been evacuated from the ship for medical treatment.
