'This is not another COVID-19': WHO chief writes to fearful Tenerife residents over hantavirus ship

World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a rare open letter to residents of the Spanish island Tenerife on Saturday, seeking to calm fears over the arrival of a cruise ship linked to a hantavirus outbreak and insisting: "this is not another COVID-19."

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, carrying more than 140 passengers and crew, is expected to arrive at the Spanish island in the Canary Islands early Sunday after an outbreak of the Andes strain of hantavirus onboard left three people dead.

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Some residents in Tenerife have opposed the ship docking there, fearing the spread of the virus.

"It is not common for me to write directly to the people of a single community, but today I feel it is not only appropriate, it is necessary," Tedros wrote. "I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest."

But the WHO chief sought to draw a distinction with the coronavirus pandemic. "But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another COVID-19. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low," he wrote.

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The WHO said the virus aboard the ship is the Andes strain of hantavirus, which can, in rare cases, spread between humans. Hantavirus is usually transmitted through exposure to infected rodent droppings. Symptoms can appear between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Tedros said there were currently "no symptomatic passengers on board" and that a WHO expert had already been deployed to the vessel. He detailed the Spanish government's containment plan, saying passengers would be brought ashore at the industrial port of Granadilla, "far from residential areas," before being moved in "sealed, guarded vehicles" through a "completely cordoned-off corridor" for repatriation to their home countries.

"You will not encounter them. Your families will not encounter them," he wrote.

Tedros also defended Spain’s decision to receive the ship, saying he had personally thanked Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for what he called "an act of solidarity and moral duty."

He said the WHO request to Spain followed the International Health Regulations, which require authorities to identify the nearest port with sufficient medical capacity during international public health emergencies.
"Tenerife met that standard. Spain honoured it," he wrote.

Tedros said nearly 150 people from 23 countries had remained stranded at sea for weeks, "some of them grieving, all of them frightened, all of them longing for home." "Tenerife has been chosen because it has the medical capacity, the infrastructure, and the humanity to help them reach safety," he wrote.

The WHO chief also announced plans to travel personally to Tenerife to oversee the operation. "I intend to travel to Tenerife to observe this operation firsthand, to stand alongside the health workers, port staff, and officials who are making it happen," he wrote. "As I have said many times: viruses do not care about politics, and they do not respect borders. The best immunity any of us has is solidarity."

Tedros ended the letter by urging residents to "trust in the preparations that have been made” and said the WHO stood “with every person on that ship, every step of the way."