A cruise ship carrying more than 100 passengers linked to a rare hantavirus outbreak arrived in the Canary Islands before dawn on Sunday, ending weeks of anxious drift across the Atlantic and beginning what Spanish authorities described as an unprecedented disembarkation operation involving 23 countries, military police, disaster response teams and charter aircraft waiting on the tarmac to carry survivors home to mandatory quarantine.

The MV Hondius anchored off Tenerife under a security perimeter of one nautical mile, forbidden from reaching shore until medical teams boarded to check every person on board for symptoms of the Andes strain of hantavirus — a rare variant linked to rodents at a landfill site near Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina, where the ship had departed on April 1. Three passengers have died.

The first death occurred at sea on April 11. A second passenger was flown from the remote British territory of Saint Helena to South Africa for treatment on April 24, and died in Johannesburg two days later. A third passenger died on board on May 2 as the ship made its way toward Cape Verde. The latest reports indicated no new cases were showing symptoms as the vessel arrived.

Spain’s health minister Mónica García has been managing public anxiety with the careful language of someone who knows that the word hantavirus, following four years of post-COVID trauma, carries a weight disproportionate to the actual transmission risk of this particular strain. “The risk of contagion for the general population is low,” she repeated on Saturday. “We believe that alarmism, misinformation and confusion are contrary to the basic principles of preserving public health.” The Andes strain is unusual among hantaviruses in that it can pass between people — which is what makes this outbreak medically significant — but transmission requires close, prolonged contact rather than the casual proximity that defined COVID’s spread.

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WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus traveled to Tenerife personally to oversee the disembarkation, praising the Spanish response as “solid and effective” and addressing the COVID comparison directly. “Your concern is legitimate, because of the experience of Covid: that trauma is still in our minds,” he told nervous residents. But the risk of wider contagion was low, he said, “because of how the virus works, and because of how the Spanish government has prepared to avoid any problem.”

The preparations visible in the port of Granadilla, an industrial facility in Tenerife’s south, reflected the scale of the undertaking. Military police and disaster response teams erected large reception tents. Access to the waterfront was restricted. Once the medical clearance process was completed, passengers were to be divided by nationality and ferried to shore in small boats, where charter aircraft from the UK, the US and multiple EU member states were due to be waiting. Medically equipped aircraft were also on standby for anyone requiring isolation during transport. Spanish nationals face mandatory quarantine at the Gómez Ulla military hospital in Madrid. The hantavirus has an incubation period of up to nine weeks, meaning the quarantine periods across multiple countries could be prolonged.

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The operation very nearly unraveled on Saturday night. Fernando Clavijo, president of the Canary Islands, announced he would refuse to permit the ship to dock, arguing the disembarkation could not be completed in a single day and that some countries had not yet sent evacuation aircraft. He then compounded the alarm by suggesting on television that a rat carrying the virus might “get off the ship in the middle of the night and endanger the people of the Canary Islands” — a claim Spain’s health secretary was forced to address publicly, calling such a scenario “not a risk.” Madrid intervened, the plans held, and the ship proceeded.

At the Candelaria hospital in Tenerife, intensive care teams were on standby with a strict isolation facility equipped with testing kit and a ventilator.

Chief intensive care physician Mar Martin was straightforward about what her unit faced. “We’ve never seen hantavirus before — but it’s a virus, with some complications, just like we manage every day. We are absolutely ready,” she said.

Port workers had protested outside the regional parliament on Friday, and local anger about the decision to divert the Hondius to Tenerife rather than elsewhere has been a persistent undercurrent.

But on the streets of Santa Cruz, the mood was measured rather than panicked. “The virus is dangerous, of course. But they say you need to have very close contact to get it,” said one resident out walking with her child. “If we’re careful, we hope it’s not too serious.”

Approximately 30 crew members will remain aboard to sail the Hondius back to the Netherlands. For everyone else, the sea ordeal ends in Tenerife. The quarantine begins immediately after.