San Francisco Frontiers - Virus-hit cruise ship evacuees land in Europe

Downplaying fears over the outbreak aboard the MV Hondius that has killed three people, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted it was not comparable to the Covid pandemic.

The WHO said emergency crews evacuated three people -- two sick crew members and another person who had been in contact with one of the confirmed cases -- from the ship, which later left its anchorage off Cape Verde.

The three evacuees later boarded flights at the airport in Cape Verde's capital Praia.

One of the medical planes landed in Amsterdam Airport at 1747 GMT, according to AFP reporters at the scene.

Another landed at Las Palmas in Spain's Canary Islands earlier on Wednesday afternoon, an AFP journalist there saw.

Spanish officials said that plane was carrying two patients and had landed for technical reasons. Spain's health ministry said the patients would need a new plane to travel on to the Netherlands.

- Low risk: WHO -

Experts confirmed the version of the virus detected aboard the Hondius was a rare strain that can be transmitted between humans.

But health officials played down fears of a wider global outbreak from the virus, which is less contagious than Covid.

UN health agency chief Tedros told AFP it was not like the Covid-19 pandemic, adding: "The risk to the rest of the world is low."

The ship has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when the WHO was informed that three passengers had died and the suspected cause was hantavirus.

The rare respiratory disease is usually spread from infected rodents, typically through urine, droppings and saliva.

The Hondius set sail from Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1 and passengers began falling ill a month ago.

A Dutch man died on board on April 11, and his wife, who left the ship to accompany his body to South Africa, died there 15 days later after also falling ill.

Two other people are still being treated -- one in Johannesburg and one in the Swiss city of Zurich.

Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia Gomez said the vessel would dock within the next three days in Tenerife, in the Canaries, and all foreign passengers would be flown back to their home countries from there if their health allowed.

- 'Very rare' disease -

Health experts warned of the risk of a wider outbreak after it emerged the Dutch woman who died had flown on a commercial plane from the island of Saint Helena to Johannesburg while she was showing symptoms.

Officials were trying to trace people on that flight, which South African-based carrier Airlink said was carrying 82 passengers and six crew.

Fuelling fears of further contact, Dutch airline KLM said on Wednesday that one of the people who died from the virus had been "briefly" on its flight from Johannesburg to the Netherlands on April 25, but was removed before take-off.

"Such transmission is very rare and only happens due to very close contact between people," South Africa's Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told a parliamentary committee.

He confirmed that tests had found the Andes virus, the only form of hantavirus that can be passed between humans.

The WHO's representative in Cape Verde, Ann Lindstrand, told AFP the three people taken from the ship were "stable", adding: "One of the three is asymptomatic."

The cruise ship originally counted 88 passengers and 59 crew, with 23 nationalities on board.

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S.Hall--SFF