The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Montenegro is in communication with its counterparts from the Netherlands regarding the health situation on the cruise ship "MV Hondius", which has been affected by hantavirus and whose crew member is a Montenegrin citizen. At this time, it is not known whether the crew will disembark in the Canary Islands (Tenerife) today or tomorrow or continue sailing to the Netherlands.
This was stated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to "Vijesti", when asked whether the department would evacuate a Montenegrin citizen who is on a cruise ship when the ship docks in the Canary Islands, as the United States (USA) and Great Britain plan to do for their citizens.
"... We inform you that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Montenegro, through the Embassy of Montenegro in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is in communication with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the serious health situation on the expeditionary cruiser 'MV Hondius', which sails under the Dutch flag," the response reads.
It is stated that the Embassy of Montenegro in the Netherlands is in contact with the shipping company to obtain additional information about the status of passengers and crew members.
"However, company representatives cannot provide more details at this time than those already publicly announced, citing, among other things, privacy protection issues and restrictions regarding data exchange," the MFA said.
They noted that, according to the information available at this time, it is not yet known what the status of the ship's crew members, including a Montenegrin citizen, will be, including the question of whether they will remain on board and continue sailing towards the Netherlands or whether they will also be disembarked and repatriated.
The Beta news agency reported yesterday that Spanish authorities are preparing to receive more than 140 passengers and crew members from a cruise ship affected by hantavirus, which is en route to the Canary Islands, and health officials said they will carry out careful evacuations.
The ship is expected to reach the Spanish island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, today or tomorrow.
The MV Hondius cruise ship sails under the Dutch flag and Dutch officials said today that they are also in close contact with the ship's owner and the authorities of the countries whose citizens are on board.
The US has agreed to send a plane to the Canary Islands to repatriate 17 of its citizens from the cruise ship, and the British government has also said it will charter a plane to evacuate more than twenty British citizens on the ship.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced yesterday that three people have died from the infection and eight have been infected, and that five of those eight cases have been laboratory-confirmed as hantavirus. The WHO said the risk of widespread public infection is low.
Hantavirus is usually spread by inhaling contaminated rodent feces and is not easily transmitted between people. Symptoms usually appear between one and eight weeks after exposure to the virus.
So far, none of the remaining passengers and crew members on board are showing symptoms of infection, the cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions, headquartered in the Netherlands, announced the day before yesterday.
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Health authorities on four continents are continuing to identify passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly infection was detected, and are also trying to find people who may have come into contact with them since then.
Nearly two weeks after the first passenger died on the ship on April 24, more than 20 people from at least 12 countries have left the ship without tracing their contacts, the operator and Dutch officials said yesterday.
The WHO confirmed today that a flight attendant on a plane that briefly carried an infected cruise ship passenger in South Africa tested negative for hantavirus.
The flight attendant was working on a flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25 and later fell ill. She was taken to an isolation ward at a hospital in Amsterdam the day before yesterday. A cruise ship passenger, a Dutch woman whose husband died on board, was briefly on the plane but was taken off because she was too ill to travel on an international flight to Europe. She later died in Johannesburg.
The Dutch public health service is currently tracing the contacts of passengers on that flight who were in contact with the sick woman before she left the plane.
British health authorities have announced that a third British citizen is suspected of being infected with hantavirus. The person is on one of the islands of Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory in the South Atlantic where a ship stopped in April.
Two other Britons who were on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus. One is in hospital in the Netherlands and the other in South Africa.
Authorities in South Africa are also trying to trace the contacts of any passengers who had previously disembarked the ship. They are mainly focusing on the April 25 flight from the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena to Johannesburg, the day after the passengers disembarked.
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