Spain Reports Fresh Suspected Hantavirus Infection Amid Preparations For Incoming Cruise Ship

Even as Spain races to prepare for the imminent arrival of the MV Hondius , the hantavirus outbreak has now reached Spanish soil itself. A 32-year-old woman in the southeastern province of Alicante is displaying symptoms consistent with hantavirus infection and is currently being tested. She had been briefly seated on a plane directly behind a Dutch woman who had contracted the virus aboard the cruise ship, the same woman who later died in a Johannesburg hospital after collapsing at the airport on April 25, Spain's Secretary of State for Health Javier Padilla confirmed.

Simultaneously, thousands of kilometres away, a new suspected case has also emerged on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha , one of the MV Hondius's stops during its ill-fated voyage, deepening fears about just how wide the virus's reach has already spread.

The MV Hondius , which set sail from Tenerife on May 6, is now expected to dock May 9 , carrying nearly 150 passengers and crew of 23 nationalities on board. Spanish health authorities have approved the ship's docking in the Canary Islands , overriding fierce objections from the Canary Islands' own president, citing what the WHO described as a "moral and legal obligation" to receive the vessel. Once passengers disembark, they will be screened under strict protocols, with non-Spanish nationals repatriated to their home countries . The WHO continues to maintain that the risk to the wider public remains low, but with fresh cases now surfacing on land, that reassurance is getting harder to sell.