Julio García
The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, met this Saturday afternoon at Moncloa Palace with the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to discuss the arrival of the MV Hondius cruise ship, affected by a hantavirus outbreak, at the port of Granadilla, located in the south of the island of Tenerife.
“Accepting the WHO’s request and offering a safe port is a moral and legal duty to our citizens, Europe, and international law. Spain will always stand with those who need help. Because there are decisions that define who we are as a society,” the Prime Minister wrote on his social media account.
The meeting between the Prime Minister and the WHO Director-General took place before Adhanom Ghebreyesus departed for Tenerife to oversee the cruise ship’s arrival at the port of Granadilla de Abona (Tenerife), accompanied by the Minister of Health, Mónica García, and the Ministers of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres.
The delegation will monitor the situation live from the command post set up to “guarantee coordination between administrations,” as well as health controls and the application of the established surveillance and response protocols, according to the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also shared a letter on social media addressed to the people of Tenerife, hours before the MV Hondius cruise ship docked in Granadilla and before his own arrival on the island.
This morning, Mónica García and Fernando Grande-Marlaska appeared at the Moncloa Palace to report on the operation for the arrival of the MV Hondius cruise ship in Tenerife, the ship where the hantavirus outbreak originated. It is expected to arrive in the early hours of Sunday morning, specifically between 4 and 6 a.m., and “the Spanish passengers will disembark first,” as the officials clarified.
García explained that the MV Hondius is expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla between 4 and 6 a.m. The first step once it docks will be to check the passengers for symptoms to detect any new infections. Passengers will disembark wearing masks, and the first to leave will likely be the Spanish. The minister also confirmed that, for the moment, there are no new cases of hantavirus in Spain and noted that “the risk to the population remains low.”
García also explained that once the passengers and some crew members disembark at the port of Granadilla, approximately 30 people will remain on board the cruise ship so it can continue its journey to the Netherlands.
Navigation prohibited within one mile
For his part, Fernando Grande-Marlaska explained that “navigation will be prohibited within one mile” of the cruise ship’s scheduled anchorage, as well as within the port itself, for safety reasons.
The Interior Minister has also confirmed that repatriation flights for passengers to France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands are already scheduled, and that a similar scenario exists for countries outside the European Union, with repatriation flights to Great Britain and the United States confirmed throughout Saturday.
