The Canaries made global headlines last month after passengers and crew on the MV Hondius, a Dutch cruise ship that had been stricken by an outbreak of hantavirus, were successfully evacuated in Tenerife in an operation that caused a bitter breach between Spanish and Canarian authorities.
The MV Hondius left Argentina on March 20th, for a cruise that would take in the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha. On April 12th, a Dutch passenger died, and his body was taken to the island of Santa Elena. His wife also died later after being transported to a South African hospital.
A British passenger was later evacuated in South Africa and diagnosed with a hantavirus variant that is transmissible between humans. Afterwards, a German passenger also died, and two crew members suffering from respiratory problems were evacuated by helicopter.
When the cruiser proposed sailing to Tenerife for evacuation on the recommendations of the WHO (World Health Organisation), Canarian President Fernando Clavijo refused, saying the proposal was “absolutely out of the question.”
However, the Spanish government overruled the regional government, authorising the Hondius to moor off Granadilla, Tenerife’s largest industrial port, for evacuationto the Tenerife Sur airport ten kilometres away.
On Sunday 10th and Monday 11th of May, 122 passengers and crew on the Hondius were evacuated from the ship and flown to their respective countries, before the cruiser departed for the Netherlands with 26 crew members. Two further passengers, a French woman and an American man, subsequently tested positive for the virus. Messages of support and gratitude for Spain’s actions were received from the EU and Pope Leo XIV, who also praised the “welcome of the Canarian people”. Pope Leo will visit Gran Canaria and Tenerife for a pre-arranged visit on the 10th and 11th of this month.
But Spain’s Health Minister, Mónica García, was not so warm in her comments regarding the Canarian President. García criticised Clavijo’s refusal to appear at the evacuation, and Health Ministry sources called him “irresponsible” after Clavijo sent a WhatsApp in which AI sources claimed that rats could possibly swim ashore from the cruiser.
The Spanish government’s decision to overrule the Canarian executive has also been described as “colonialist” by government representatives.
Although the risk of further hantavirus contagion has been described as “very low” by the WHO, memories of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic are still fresh. The first two cases of coronavirus in Spain were detected on the Canarian Island of La Gomera in January 2020, and 1,000 guests and staff were quarantined in a hotel in Tenerife the following month.
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