Volkswacht Bodensee - Evacuation of hantavirus-hit ship begins in Canary Islands

Three passengers from the MV Hondius -- 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.

No vaccines or specific treatments exist for hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, where the ship departed in April.

But health officials have stressed that the risk for global public health is low and played down comparisons to a repeat of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The final flight to evacuate most of the ship's nearly 150 passengers and crew will leave for Australia on Monday, before the ship continues to the Netherlands, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said.

Passengers wearing blue medical suits began disembarking the Dutch-flagged vessel onto smaller boats to reach the port of Granadilla on Tenerife, AFP journalists saw.

The evacuees then boarded a bus for their transfer to Tenerife South airport, where their repatriation flights were due to take off.

"The disembarkation of the passengers and the Spanish crew member has started," the health ministry confirmed on Telegram.

The 14 Spaniards on board would leave first, followed by a Dutch flight that would also take citizens from Germany, Belgium, Greece and part of the crew, Garcia said.

Separate flights for Canadian, Turkish, French, British, Irish and US citizens were also planned for Sunday, added Garcia.

- International concern -

The Atlantic archipelago's regional authorities have consistently resisted taking in the ship, which was only authorised to anchor offshore instead of docking in the port.

But all passengers are asymptomatic and underwent a final medical assessment before their disembarkation, Garcia told reporters on Tenerife shortly before the operation began.

Spanish authorities have insisted there will be no contact with the local population in Tenerife.

AFP journalists at Granadilla saw white tents erected along the quay and that the police, some in protective medical suits, had sealed off part of the small industrial port.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is accompanying Spanish officials to oversee the delicate operation.

Regional authorities have warned that it must be completed by Monday, when adverse weather conditions will force the ship to leave.

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.

The WHO said Friday it had confirmed six cases out of eight suspected ones. There are no suspected cases remaining on the ship.

The MV Hondius had arrived at Tenerife early on Sunday morning from Cape Verde, where three infected people had already been evacuated to Europe earlier in the week.

It left Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde.

The WHO believes the first infection occurred before the start of the expedition, followed by transmission between humans onboard the vessel.

But Argentine provincial health official Juan Petrina has said there was an "almost zero chance" the Dutch man linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia based on the virus's weeks-long incubation period, among other factors.

Health authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already disembarked and anyone who may have come into contact with them.

I.Stoeckli--VB