Evacuation of hantavirus-stricken cruise ship could face delays due to bad weather

‘Unprecedented operation’ under way to receive MV Hondius off Tenerife to assess and repatriate those onboard What is hantavirus? Where did the cruise ship hantavirus come from and what happens next? The evacuation of the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius cruise ship must be completed within 24 hours of the vessel reaching Tenerife on Sunday or face days or even weeks of delay because of bad weather, authorities in the Canary Islands warned on Friday. The Dutch-flagged vessel, which was sailing from Argentina to Cape Verde, is due to arrive in the Spanish archipelago this weekend, triggering what Spain’s health minister has termed an “unprecedented operation” to receive, assess and repatriate the 149 passengers and crew members onboard. But the operation now faces the additional complication of changing weather. “The only window of opportunity we have to carry out this operation is around 12 o’clock on Sunday morning and until conditions change from Monday,” Alfonso Cabello, a regional government spokesperson, told reporters on Friday. “Otherwise, the ship must leave and no operation could be carried out again in theory … until the end of May,” he said, citing wind and swell. The MV H