The president of the Canary Islands rejects that the cruise ship affected by hantavirus makes a stopover in the islands
The WHO and the Spanish government have agreed that the ship will disembark in the archipelago in the coming days
BarcelonaThat the cruise ship affected by hantavirus disembarks in the Canary Islands, as agreed this Tuesday by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Spanish government, has not pleased the president of the archipelago, Fernando Clavijo. The politician, from Coalición Canaria, has rejected that the luxury ship MV Hondius dock in one of its ports (it is still unknown which) and has asked the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to reconsider the decision.
Clavijo, from Brussels, where this Wednesday he had a scheduled meeting with the Vice-President of the European Commission Teresa Ribera, has requested an urgent meeting with Sánchez and has assured that he is willing to travel to Madrid immediately if he agrees to receive him. "This decision does not obey any technical criteria nor have we been provided with sufficient information to maintain a message of calm and guarantee the safety of the population," assured the Canarian president.
This Wednesday it was also confirmed that the hantavirus that has caused three deaths on the cruise ship is of the Andes strain. This strain is the only one in which human-to-human transmission of this type of virus has been documented. The tests to identify the strain were carried out by a collaborating laboratory of the WHO thanks to the sample taken from a person who had been on board the affected ship.