The WHO chief told the people of Tenerife Saturday that the risk to them from an arriving cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak was “low”.
“I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another Covid,” World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in an open letter to the people of the Spanish island where the MV Hondius was expected to arrive Sunday.
“The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low.”
The Dutch-flagged cruise ship was expected to reach waters off Tenerife at dawn, with Tedros also due on the archipelago to help coordinate the evacuation of around 150 people on board.
Three passengers from the ship — a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman — have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents.
The only hantavirus type that can transmit from person to person — the Andes virus — has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, fuelling international concern.
It has also sparked fears among people of the Canary Islands, with regional authorities having refused to allow the vessel to dock, deciding it will remain offshore while passengers are screened and evacuated.
