WHO director says he will personally oversee hantavirus cruise evacuation

World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says he will personally oversee the painstaking process of evacuating more than 100 people from a cruise ship Responding to outbreaks Rare and deadly hantavirus.

“I go there myself,” Tedros said in a letter to the people of the Canary Islands. The ship will be anchored off the coast of Tenerife, the largest island in the Canary Islands. “I intend to travel to Tenerife to witness this action first-hand, to stand alongside the health workers, port staff and officials who carried it out, and to personally pay tribute to an island that has responded to a difficult situation with grace, solidarity and compassion. Your humanity deserves to be witnessed, not just acknowledged from a distance.”

The ship is currently heading for the Spanish territory of Tenerife, where it is expected to arrive before dawn Sunday local time or around midnight ET, officials said.

There were eight people on board Confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus The World Health Organization said on Friday that three people had died. According to Oceanwide Expeditions, which owns the ship, none of the 147 people on board, including 60 crew members, are currently showing symptoms.

According to Oceanwide Expeditions, there are 17 Americans on board the MV Hondius, who will be disembarked in a small boat, taken to shore and then immediately to a plane waiting for them on the runway. The plane, provided by the U.S. government and under the supervision of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will fly Americans to the National Quarantine Center at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I’m sure they’re very eager to go home, but (we need to) make sure they do it in the safest way possible,” Maria Van Kerkhove, acting director of the WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, told a news conference on Saturday.

Spain’s health ministry said every country with passengers on board would conduct evacuations similar to those waiting for a plane.

The World Health Organization said it recommended countries quarantine passengers evacuated from ships for 42 days after last exposure to the virus.

The disease is usually acquired through close contact with rodents and is not spread from person to person. However, tests conducted on those who became ill aboard the Hondé confirmed that they were infected with the Andes strain, the only variant that can be spread through close contact with sick people.

However, health experts say the likelihood of widespread transmission is very low.

“I know that when you hear the word ‘epidemic’ and see a ship sailing toward your shores, memories that none of us have completely calmed resurface,” Tedros said in the letter. “The pain of 2020 is still real, and I will not ignore it for a moment. But I need you to hear clearly: this is not another COVID-19 epidemic.”

“The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low,” he continued. “My colleagues and I have said this clearly, and I say it to you again.”

The ship left Argentina on April 1 for a cruise to several remote islands in the South Atlantic, including Tristan da Cunha and St. Helena, both British territories.

The outbreak on the ship appears to have started with a Dutch couple who, in the months leading up to the voyage, traveled around South America, where the Andes strain is the only place where it exists. According to Oceanwide Adventures, the couple spent time birding in an area where rodents are known to test positive for hantavirus.

The husband died on the boat on April 11, and his wife was one of 32 people who disembarked on St. Helena, Oceanwide Expeditions reported. She was due to fly to South Africa and died days later while being removed from a KLM aircraft after becoming too ill to fly, according to KLM.

Dozens of people who were on the plane or disembarked at St. Helena have been placed under observation around the world, including in the United States. U.S. state health departments in Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Arizona, New Jersey and California have confirmed to CBS News that no one in the United States has shown any symptoms of the virus.