After a roughly month-long voyage and days of quarantining, the remaining Canadians aboard a cruise ship at the centre of a high-profile and fatal hantavirus outbreak are set to begin their journey home.
Local media say the MV Hondius docked at a port in Tenerife, an island in Spain’s Canary Islands, just after 2 a.m. EDT.
Oceanwide Expeditions, the ship’s owner, says four Canadians and roughly 130 other asymptomatic passengers will soon begin disembarking in groups of 5 to 10.
After passengers have left, the MV Hondius will spend the next five days sailing back to the Netherlands with remaining crew members aboard.
Oceanwide Expeditions says representatives from a number of groups, including the World Health Organization, will screen passengers at the port.
“As outlined by the WHO, in partnership with a number of international organizations and governments, guests will be transported by air to their respective countries, where they will enter quarantine procedures,” Oceanwide Expeditions said in a Saturday statement.
“These procedures are determined by respective national authorities.”
Global Affairs Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the disembarkment.
In an earlier statement, Oceanwide Expeditions described the mood on board as positive.
“Guests and crew continue to follow the guidance of onboard medical personnel, and medical monitoring continues,” it said.
A number of Canadians have been connected with the hantavirus outbreak on the ship, which began its voyage to Antarctica from Argentina on April 1 and made several stops at isolated islands in the South Atlantic.
At least six Canadians were aboard the cruise ship, while the others who are connected, including two people from Alberta and a person from Quebec, possibly came in contact with someone with hantavirus symptoms on a flight.
Two of the six Canadian passengers disembarked with roughly 30 others on the remote island of St. Helena on April 24, before the WHO detected the outbreak on May 2. Those two are from Ontario, and officials say they are asymptomatic and self-isolating.
Three non-Canadian passengers have died, and five others, who have already left the ship, are infected with hantavirus.
Inside the ship, the outbreak has left passengers feeling scared and ostracized. Some have said they are seeing many hateful messages on social media about passengers and the outbreak.
“You go onto social media — they want to dynamite the boat. They want to sink the boat,” a Spanish passenger said.
For days, WHO officials have sought to dispel comparisons between the COVID-19 pandemic and hantavirus, stressing that the latter poses very low risk to the general public.
On Saturday, the WHO’s head again reassured the public and residents of Tenerife, some of whom were worried about virus spread after the ship’s evacuation.
“I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is in Tenerife to help with Sunday’s disembarkment.
“The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment … But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low.”
Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people.
It can cause life-threatening illness.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2026.
–With files from The Associated Press
Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press
