{"id":210396,"date":"2026-05-11T10:58:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T10:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/americans-evacuated-from-hantavirus-stricken-cruise-ship-off-spanish-island-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T10:58:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T10:58:51","slug":"americans-evacuated-from-hantavirus-stricken-cruise-ship-off-spanish-island-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/americans-evacuated-from-hantavirus-stricken-cruise-ship-off-spanish-island-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans evacuated from hantavirus-stricken cruise ship off Spanish island – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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TENERIFE, Spain \u2014 <\/strong>The American passengers who were aboard the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak are on evacuation flights en route to the U.S., the Department of Health and Human Services said Sunday night.
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All 17 American citizens aboard the MV Hondius are on their way home, officials said. Two are traveling in the plane\u2019s biocontainment units \u201cout of an abundance of caution,\u201d the department said. One passenger has mild symptoms, and another \u201ctested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus,\u201d HHS said in a statement.
The passengers are bound for the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center (RESPTC) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center\/Nebraska Medicine in Omaha. The flight will then take the passenger with mild symptoms to a second RESPTC site, according to HHS.
\u201cUpon arrival at each facility, each individual will undergo clinical assessment and receive appropriate care and support based on their condition,\u201d the agency said.
Omaha Mayor John W. Ewing Jr. said in a statement Sunday night that city officials have been briefed on the arrival of 16 of the passengers.
\u201cWe are confident in the quality of care that these individuals will receive along with the protocols to keep healthcare workers safe,\u201d he said.
Spanish Health Ministry officials had earlier said a British national with U.S. citizenship was on the flight.
The passengers had boarded buses earlier Sunday evening for evacuation flights out of Spain.
Passengers started evacuating the cruise ship Sunday shortly after it arrived in Tenerife, the largest of Spain\u2019s Canary Islands off West Africa. The first group of passengers, wearing masks and head-to-toe personal protective equipment, were kept strictly secluded from members of the public as a small boat brought them ashore.
A medical tent was set up ready to receive passengers in what is expected to be a two-day operation at the island\u2019s Granadilla port, with buses on hand to take them to the airport, where countries have arranged special flights to take them home.
The first plane carrying 14 Spanish passengers left Tenerife on Sunday for the Spanish capital, Madrid, where they were taken to G\u00f3mez Ulla Hospital, Spanish Health Minister M\u00f3nica Garc\u00eda said. Planes carrying French, Canadian and British passengers were also preparing to depart Sunday evening. The passengers will be hospitalized for monitoring upon repatriation.
The four Canadian passengers will be taken to a predetermined location in British Columbia, where they will self-isolate for at least 21 or up to 42 days if there is a need to extend, the country\u2019s public health officials said.
The five French passengers will be monitored at a hospital for three days and sent to quarantine at home for 45 days, according to France\u2019s foreign ministry. One of the French passengers had developed symptoms, and the necessary protocols will be implemented, Garc\u00eda said at a news conference Sunday.
Six confirmed cases of hantavirus and two suspected cases have been linked to the outbreak on the ship, the World Health Organization said Friday. Three of those people have died, officials said, including two who died aboard the ship.
The ship is anchored offshore in the Canary Islands to enable the evacuation after Spanish officials overruled local leaders who had opposed the move<\/a>, fearful of the infection risk and any potential economic hit to Tenerife\u2019s tourism-dominated economy.
\u201cThe risk to the public is low,\u201d WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters after the first plane departed. \u201cSo they shouldn\u2019t be scared, and they shouldn\u2019t panic.\u201d
\u201cBased on scientific assessment and based on evidence, the risk is low,\u201d he added.
In their home countries, many will be taken to isolation facilities.
The WHO is recommending a long quarantine period. Diana Rojas, the head of high-impact diseases, said Sunday that \u201cwe cannot be sure that they will not develop symptoms until 42 days have passed.\u201d
Garcia said passengers from the Netherlands were the next group to leave the vessel after Spanish citizens, with their plane also carrying German, Belgian and Greek passengers, as well as part of the crew.
Passengers from Turkey, France, \u2060the U.K. and the U.S. were then expected to be evacuated, followed by six people from \u201cAustralia, New Zealand and Asia,\u201d she said, as part of the last flight planned for Monday.
Dr. Boris Pavlin, a WHO medical epidemiologist, told NBC News the operation had been \u201cextremely efficient.\u201d
Passengers have been coming off the ship on boats \u201cin small numbers, placed on buses and spaced apart, just to make sure that \u2014 even though all of them are asymptomatic, they have no symptoms right now \u2014 that they don\u2019t present any additional new risk to each other,\u201d he said.
\u201cThis is not Covid,\u201d he added. \u201cIn Covid, we\u2019ve all been traumatized by how people you didn\u2019t even think were sick were already spreading it, [but] we have no reason to believe that that\u2019s happening here.\u201d
The Dutch-owned ship, along with some crewmembers and the passengers\u2019 luggage, will continue on the five-day journey to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, according to cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions.
The body of a person who died on board will also remain on the ship, which will undergo a disinfection process in the Netherlands, Garc\u00eda said.
Health officials have stressed that the risk to the global population and to the residents of Tenerife, off western Africa, is low.
Hantavirus is typically contracted through contact with rodents, especially when people are exposed to their urine, droppings and saliva. The origins of the first case \u201csuggest possible exposure to rodents during bird watching activities,\u201d the WHO said.
Of the group of viruses, only the Andes <\/a>\u2014 the strain in the Hondius case \u2014 is known to spread between people, but those people usually have very close contact with each other, according to the WHO.
On May 2, a month after the ship left Ushuaia, Argentina, \u201ca cluster of passengers with severe respiratory illness\u201d on board was reported to the WHO, the health organization said<\/a>.
At that time, the ship had 147 passengers and crewmembers, but 34 passengers and crewmembers had previously disembarked, the WHO said.
The report came weeks after the first death, that of a Dutch man who died on board on April 11. At that point, \u201cthe cause of death was unknown and there was no evidence of a virus or contagion on board,\u201d Oceanwide Expeditions has said.
His wife died at a South African clinic on April 26, the WHO said.
The third death, that of a German woman, happened on board on May 2, according to the WHO and Oceanwide Expeditions.
Two days later, hantavirus was confirmed in a passenger who had been medically evacuated to a hospital in South Africa, the company said.
Hantavirus can have a fatality rate of around 40% to 50%, the WHO says, and the elderly are particularly at risk. The average age of those aboard the ship is 65, it said.
Phil Helsel reported from Los Angeles, Freddie Clayton from London, Mirna Alsharif from New York and Mo Abbas and Daniele Hamamdjian from Tenerife.<\/em>
Mirna Alsharif is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.
Mirna Alsharif is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.
Mo Abbas is a multimedia producer for NBC News based in London.
Daniele Hamamdjian is an NBC foreign correspondent based in London.
Freddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London.\u00a0
Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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