90-Second Read: Spain’s Canary Islands brace for arrival of Hantavirus-stricken cruise ship

Passengers and some of the crew are expected to evacuate before the ship, where an outbreak of Hantavirus led to the deaths of three people, continues on its way to the Netherlands. A flight attendant on the Dutch airline KLM, who came into contact with an infected passenger from the cruise ship and later showed mild symptoms, tested negative for Hantavirus, the WHO said Friday. Spanish authorities said a woman on that flight was being tested for Hantavirus, having developed symptoms at home in eastern Spain. 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.

Instead, it will remain offshore while passengers are screened and evacuated between Sunday and Monday, the only window health officials say the weather will allow. Cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said earlier that "all guests and a limited number of crew members" were expected to begin to leave the ship from around 0700 GMT (9 p.m. The passenger, the wife of the first person to die in the outbreak, had briefly been on a plane bound from Johannesburg to the Netherlands on April 25, but was removed before takeoff. The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius arrived at the Spanish port of Granadilla escorted by a Civil Guard vessel, journalists reported, confirmed by data from the maritime tracking service VesselFinder. The WHO said Friday it had confirmed six cases out of eight suspected ones.

We classify everybody on board as what we call a high-risk contact," WHO's epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director Maria Van Kerkhove said Saturday. But the risk to the general public and the people of the Canaries remained low, she added. The MV Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde. British health authorities also said Friday there was a suspected case on Tristan da Cunha, one of the world's most isolated settlements with around 220 people. At the port of Granadilla de Abona, AFP journalists saw white tents had been sent up along the quay and members of the civil guard had secured part of the port.

You clearly find our careful reporting of the Iran war valuable, at a time when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically during this ongoing conflict. Provincial health official Juan Petrina said there was an "almost zero chance" the Dutch man linked to the outbreak contracted the disease in Ushuaia based on the virus's 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. She is in isolation in the hospital, said health secretary Javier Padilla.