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The head of the World Health Organization arrived in Spain Saturday to await the arrival of the doomed rat virus-stricken cruise ship.
The vessel will not be allowed to dock on the Canary Islands when it approaches Sunday — and instead will be left floating just offshore, as hazmat-clad health teams swarm aboard to evacuate the doomed passengers and crew back to two dozen countries.
It comes after a dramatic week-long showdown between the conservative local leader and Spain’s socialist prime minister, over the decision to follow orders from the World Health Organization to let the cursed ship in.
The MV Hondius is estimated to arrive near the port of Granadilla, on the island of Tenerife, “in the early hours of Sunday,” according to the latest update from Oceanwide Expeditions Saturday.
A team of epidemiologists and medical professionals deployed by the Centers for Disease Control is en route to Spain, to escort the 17 Americans on board the ship — as are health officials from across the globe.
Altogether they will repatriate 147 passengers and 60 crew members to 24 different countries, according to the latest numbers released by the crew. The 14 Spaniards on board will be evacuated by military plane and taken to Madrid to quarantine.
The US Department of State is chartering a government medical repatriation flight that will bring the 17 American passengers to the Air Force One Base in Omaha, Nebraska.
From there, they will be transported to the National Quarantine Center at the University of Nebraska, where another CDC team is being deployed.
The CDC has not said how long the passengers will have to isolate before returning home. It’s also not known what states they are from. The incubation period for the hantavirus averages one to three weeks — but in rare cases can go up to eight weeks.
Three people have died, including Dutch ornithologists Leo and Mirjam Schilperoord and a German passenger, and at least five more have fallen sick. Three were airlifted from Cape Verde to the Netherlands on May 6, including 56-year-old British crew member Martin Antsee, and remain in the hospital as of Saturday.
Another was a 69-year-old British man, a passenger, who was airlifted from Ascension Island on April 27 to an intensive care unit in Johannesburg — along with his American partner, who is reportedly asymptomatic.
United Kingdom authorities confirmed Friday that a local on the remote island of Tristan da Cunha — where the ship made its first scheduled stop on April 15 — was being treated for a suspected case of the rodent-borne virus.
Hantavirus – the disease that killed Gene Hackman’s wife Betsy Arakawa – is usually spread through rodent droppings, but this strain, the Andes virus, can be spread between people and carries a mortality rate of nearly 40%.
Argentina experienced a spike in cases last year, logging 86 infections and 28 deaths in 2025 —one of its deadliest tallies in years, with wildfires in Patagonia suspected of pushing rodents closer to towns.
In January, the country’s National Epidemiological Bulletin determined that “with a total of 58 confirmed cases, the country is at the outbreak threshold” for hantavirus.
Argentinian officials dispatched a team to the city of Ushuaia this week to capture and analyze rat samples for the virus.
English (US)